Mechanisms of multiyear variations of Northern Australia wet-season rainfall

Northern Australia wet season (November–April) rainfall exhibits strong variability on multiyear timescales. In order to reveal the underlying mechanisms of this variability, we investigate observational records for the period 1900–2017. At multiyear timescales, the rainfall varies coherently across north-western Australia (NW) and north-eastern Australia (NE), but the variability in these two regions is largely independent. The variability in the NE appears to be primarily controlled by the remote influence of low frequency variations of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In contrast, multiyear variations in the NW appear to be largely driven locally and stem from a combination of rainfall-wind-evaporation feedback, whereby enhanced land-based rainfall is associated with westerly wind anomalies to the west that enhance local evaporation over the ocean to feed the enhanced land based rainfall, and soil moisture-rainfall feedback. Soil-moisture and associated evapotranspiration over northern Australia appear to act as sources of memory for sustaining multiyear wet and dry conditions in the NW. Our results imply that predictability of multiyear rainfall variations over the NW may derive from the initial soil moisture state and its memory, while predictability in the NE will be limited by the predictability of the low frequency variations of ENSO

Seasonal evolution of stratosphere-troposphere coupling in the Southern Hemisphere and implications for the predictability of surface climate

Stratosphere-troposphere coupling in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) polar vortex is an important dynamical process that provides predictability of the tropospheric Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and its associated surface impacts. SH stratosphere-troposphere coupling is explored by height-time domain empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis applied to the zonal mean-zonal wind anomalies averaged over the Antarctic circumpolar region (55–65°S; U55–65°S). The leading EOF explains 42% of the height-time variance of U55–65°S and depicts the variations of the vortex that is tightly tied to the seasonal breakdown of the vortex during late spring. The leading EOF pattern, defined here as the stratosphere-troposphere coupled mode, is characterized by variations in U55–65°S that develop in early winter near the stratopause, change sign from late winter to early spring, gain maximum amplitude during October in the upper stratosphere, and then extend downward to the surface from October to January. This stratosphere-troposphere coupling during the spring months appears to be preconditioned by anomalies in upward propagating planetary wave activity and a meridional shift of the vortex as high as the stratopause and as early as June. Interannual variations of the stratosphere-troposphere coupled mode are highly correlated with those of the tropospheric SAM, Antarctic stratospheric ozone concentration, Antarctic sea ice concentrations in the South Pacific and the Weddell Sea, and SH regional climate during late spring–early summer. Anomalies in the upper stratospheric flow as early as June are thus a potentially important source of predictability for the tropospheric SAM and its associated impacts on surface climate in spring and summer

Influence of the 2015–2016 El Niño on the record‑breaking mangrove dieback along northern Australia coast

This study investigates the underlying climate processes behind the largest recorded mangrove dieback event along the Gulf of Carpentaria coast in northern Australia in late 2015. Using satellite derived fractional canopy cover (FCC), variation of the mangrove canopies during recent decades are studied, including a severe dieback during 2015–2016. The relationship between mangrove FCC and climate conditions is examined with a focus on the possible role of the 2015–2016 El Niño in altering favorable conditions sustaining the mangroves. The mangrove FCC is shown to be coherent with the low-frequency component of sea level height (SLH) variation related to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle in the equatorial Pacific. The SLH drop associated with the 2015–2016 El Niño is identified to be the crucial factor leading to the dieback event. A stronger SLH drop occurred during austral autumn and winter, when the SLH anomalies were about 12% stronger than the previous very strong El Niño events. The persistent SLH drop occurred in the dry season of the year when SLH was seasonally at its lowest, so potentially exposed the mangroves to unprecedented hostile conditions. The influence of other key climate factors is also discussed, and a multiple linear regression model is developed to understand the combined role of the important climate variables on the mangrove FCC variation

Assessment of the APCC Coupled MME Suite in Predicting the Distinctive Climate Impacts of Two Flavors of ENSO during Boreal Winter

Forecast skill of the APEC Climate Center (APCC) Multi-Model Ensemble (MME) seasonal forecast system in predicting two main types of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), namely canonical (or cold tongue) and Modoki ENSO, and their regional climate impacts is assessed for boreal winter. The APCC MME is constructed by simple composite of ensemble forecasts from five independent coupled ocean-atmosphere climate models. Based on a hindcast set targeting boreal winter prediction for the period 19822004, we show that the MME can predict and discern the important differences in the patterns of tropical Pacific sea surface temperature anomaly between the canonical and Modoki ENSO one and four month ahead. Importantly, the four month lead MME beats the persistent forecast. The MME reasonably predicts the distinct impacts of the canonical ENSO, including the strong winter monsoon rainfall over East Asia, the below normal rainfall and above normal temperature over Australia, the anomalously wet conditions across the south and cold conditions over the whole area of USA, and the anomalously dry conditions over South America. However, there are some limitations in capturing its regional impacts, especially, over Australasia and tropical South America at a lead time of one and four months. Nonetheless, forecast skills for rainfall and temperature over East Asia and North America during ENSO Modoki are comparable to or slightly higher than those during canonical ENSO events

A sustained ocean observing system in the Indian Ocean for climate related scientific knowledge and societal needs

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Hermes, J. C., Masumoto, Y., Beal, L. M., Roxy, M. K., Vialard, J., Andres, M., Annamalai, H., Behera, S., D'Adamo, N., Doi, T., Peng, M., Han, W., Hardman-Mountford, N., Hendon, H., Hood, R., Kido, S., Lee, C., Lees, T., Lengaigne, M., Li, J., Lumpkin, R., Navaneeth, K. N., Milligan, B., McPhaden, M. J., Ravichandran, M., Shinoda, T., Singh, A., Sloyan, B., Strutton, P. G., Subramanian, A. C., Thurston, S., Tozuka, T., Ummenhofer, C. C., Unnikrishnan, A. S., Venkatesan, R., Wang, D., Wiggert, J., Yu, L., & Yu, W. (2019). A sustained ocean observing system in the Indian Ocean for climate related scientific knowledge and societal needs. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 355, doi: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00355.The Indian Ocean is warming faster than any of the global oceans and its climate is uniquely driven by the presence of a landmass at low latitudes, which causes monsoonal winds and reversing currents. The food, water, and energy security in the Indian Ocean rim countries and islands are intrinsically tied to its climate, with marine environmental goods and services, as well as trade within the basin, underpinning their economies. Hence, there are a range of societal needs for Indian Ocean observation arising from the influence of regional phenomena and climate change on, for instance, marine ecosystems, monsoon rains, and sea-level. The Indian Ocean Observing System (IndOOS), is a sustained observing system that monitors basin-scale ocean-atmosphere conditions, while providing flexibility in terms of emerging technologies and scientificand societal needs, and a framework for more regional and coastal monitoring. This paper reviews the societal and scientific motivations, current status, and future directions of IndOOS, while also discussing the need for enhanced coastal, shelf, and regional observations. The challenges of sustainability and implementation are also addressed, including capacity building, best practices, and integration of resources. The utility of IndOOS ultimately depends on the identification of, and engagement with, end-users and decision-makers and on the practical accessibility and transparency of data for a range of products and for decision-making processes. Therefore we highlight current progress, issues and challenges related to end user engagement with IndOOS, as well as the needs of the data assimilation and modeling communities. Knowledge of the status of the Indian Ocean climate and ecosystems and predictability of its future, depends on a wide range of socio-economic and environmental data, a significant part of which is provided by IndOOS.This work was supported by the PMEL contribution no. 4934

Dynamics and predictability of El Nino-Southern Oscillation: an Australian perspective on progress and challenges

Many scientific challenges remain for managing the risk of future ENSO impacts in countries like Australia that are strongly affected by ENSO event diversity

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publicationentry

Assessment of international seasonal rainfall forecasts for Australia and the benefit of multi-model ensembles for improving reliability

Is there an Indian Ocean dipole and is it independent of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation?

The papers by Saji et al (1999) and Webster et al (1999) describe an equatorial Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) dipole pattern (IOD) which they claim modulates rainfall in East Africa and Indonesia, and operates independently of the global-scale El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The concept of possible independence of Indian Ocean SST variability form ENSO has been shaped by research focusing on climate events during the 1990s (eg Behera et al, 1999; Murtugudde et al., 2000). However, in an earlier paper Nicholls (1989) describes a different IOD pattern of variability related to Australian winter rainfall, and argues that this pattern operates largely independently of ENSO. In this paper we demonstrate clearly that with consideration of the evolution of ENSO events, the varying lag correlations between IOD end ENSO indices, and using seasonally stratified data, the apparent ENSO independence disappears form both IODs