Soo-il Ahn

El Nino events (warm) are often stronger than La Nina events (cold). This asymmetry is an intrinsic nonlinear characteristic of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. In order to measure the nonlinearity of ENSO, the maximum potential intensity (MPI) index and the nonlinear dynamic heating (NDH) of ENSO are proposed as qualitative and quantitative measures. The 1997/98 El Nino that was recorded as the strongest event in the past century and another strong El Nino event in 1982/83 ne

In the late 1970s, the ENSO cycle exhibited frequency change. The oscillation period increased from 2-4 yr (high frequency) during 1962-75 to 4-6 yr (low frequency) during 1980-93. Observations suggest that this frequency change was accompanied by a significant change in the structure of the coupled ENSO mode. In comparison with the high-frequency regime, the structure of the coupled mode in the low-frequency regime shows three distinctive features during the warm phase of ENSO: the eastward shi

The vertical advection of anomalous subsurface temperature by the mean upwelling and the zonal advection of mean sea surface temperature (SST) by anomalous current are known to be essential for the equatorial SST anomaly associated with the El Nin o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In the coupled model, these two processes are referred to as the thermocline feedback and the zonal advective feedback, respectively. Using a version of a recharge oscillator model for ENSO obtained from the stripped-down

Abstract Using ocean data assimilation products, variability of eastern Pacific Ocean tropical instability waves (TIWs) and their interaction with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) were analyzed. TIWs are known to heat the cold tongue through horizontal advection. Conversely, variability of the cold tongue influences TIW variability (TIWV). During La Niña, TIWs are more active and contribute to anomalous warming. During El Niño, TIWs are suppressed and induce an anomalous cooling. TIWV thu

Abstract Some climate variables do not show the same response to declining atmospheric CO 2 concentrations as before the preceding increase. A comprehensive understanding of this hysteresis effect and its regional patterns is, however, lacking. Here we use an Earth system model with an idealized CO 2 removal scenario to show that surface temperature and precipitation exhibit globally widespread irreversible changes over a timespan of centuries. To explore the climate hysteresis and reversibility

Abstract. El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the strongest mode of interannual climate variability in the current climate, influencing ecosystems, agriculture, and weather systems across the globe, but future projections of ENSO frequency and amplitude remain highly uncertain. A comparison of changes in ENSO in a range of past and future climate simulations can provide insights into the sensitivity of ENSO to changes in the mean state, including changes in the seasonality of incoming solar r

The peaks of El Niño in the Cane–Zebiak (CZ) model tend to appear most frequently around November when the ocean Rossby waves, which were amplified during the previous unstable season (February–May), turn back to the eastern Pacific and when the local instability in the eastern Pacific is very weak. The peaks of La Niña in the CZ model occur most frequently in boreal summer, in contrast to the observed counterpart that usually occurs in boreal winter. Sensitivity experiments indicate that the ph

The mechanisms of interdecadal changes of El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) modes are examined through an eigen analysis of a simple coupled ocean‐atmosphere model. It is shown that the observed interdecadal climate shift can effectively modify the strength of two major coupled feedbacks for the ENSO mode, namely, the zonal advection and thermocline feedbacks. These modifications lead to quantitative changes of the leading coupled mode in its frequency, growth rate, and spatial pattern, which

Abstract The El Niño–La Niña asymmetry was estimated in the 10 different models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). Large differences in the “asymmetricity” (a variance-weighted skewness) of SST anomalies are found between models and observations. Most of the coupled models underestimate the nonlinearity and only a few exhibit the positively skewed SST anomalies over the tropical eastern Pacific as seen in the observation. A significant association between the nonl

The SST anomalies (SSTA) over the past 148 years have been analyzed to describe the interdecadal change in the skewness of SSTA (ICS) in the tropical Pacific and possible consequence of this change. The first EOF mode of ICS represents the interdecadal changes in the El Nino‐La Nina asymmetry. The corresponding PC time series is related to the ENSO predictability, suggesting that ENSOs are more predictable during the positive ICS decades than during the negative ICS decades, and to the propagati