Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Model Simulations of El Niño/Southern Oscillation with and without an Active Indian Ocean

An atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) was coupled with an ocean GCM covering the Pacific. This coupled model (PAC) was integrated over a 30-years period. The PAC model stimulates well the mean seasonally varying atmospheric and ocean fields and reproduces interannual variations corresponding to ENSO (El Niñlo/Southern Oscillation). The same atmospheric GCM was coupled with an ocean GCM covering the Indian Ocean and the tropical Pacific. This coupled model (IPC) was integrated over a 35-year period. The model climate in IPC is fairly reasonable, and its Pacific part is very similar to the Pacific climate of the PAC model. ENSO is the major interannual variability in the IPC model. The dynamics of ENSO in IPC are essentially the same as that in PAC. In the Pacific, the subsurface ocean heat content anomalies are formed by wind anomalies and show westward propagation centered off the equator. After they reach the western Pacific, they show eastward propagation along the equator. They produce changes in the thermocline structure in the eastern equatorial Pacific resulting in anomalies in SSTs. The SST anomalies provide wind anomalies, the sign of which is opposite to that of the wind anomalies in the first stage, so that this chain will continue. ENSO in the PAC and IPC models can be regarded as the “delayed oscillator” operating in the Pacific. Although the major interannual variability in the Indian Ocean is linked to ENSO in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean does not play any active role in the ENSO cycle in the IPC model. Interannual variability of monsoon activity in the IPC model is more reasonable than that in the PAC model. However, any definite mechanism for the relationship between monsoon activity and ENSO does not emerge in the present study.