Greenhouse warming, decadal variability, or El Nino? An attempt to understand the anomalous 1990s

We have investigated the dominant variability modes in the tropics and contrasted them with the anomalous situation observed during the last few years. The prime quantity analyzed is anomalous sea surface temperature (SST) in the region 30 S-60 N. Atmospheric fields for the same region were derived from a multi-decadal run with an atmospheric general circulation model which was forced by the same SSTs. The tropical SST variability can be characterized by three modes: An interannual mode (the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO)), a decadal mode, and a trend. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: RR 1347(175) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman