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MJO influence on ENSO effects in precipitation and temperature over South America

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Abstract

Researches on the effects of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) over precipitation and temperature, such as drought, flood, and anomalous high or cold temperatures, have large importance because of the impacts on the environment, society, and economy. Some recent studies, focusing on the Northern Hemisphere, have indicated that the basic response of ENSO is dependent on the phase of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). The present work investigates the combined response of the phases of these two distinct phenomena, ENSO and MJO, over South America. Our goal is to explore the relative importance of the MJO to precipitation and temperature anomalies during each ENSO phase. A composite analysis with each combination of the phases of ENSO and MJO was performed to obtain the mean patterns of temperature and precipitation over South America for the months of November to March (austral summer) and May to September (austral winter). The results showed that the precipitation and temperature anomaly patterns observed during the ENSO phases, without the concurrent occurrence of the MJO, can be strengthened or weakened during events where ENSO and MJO occur simultaneously. Moreover, the effect on the anomaly patterns in these events depends on the MJO phase.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge FAPESP for the financial support through scholarship for the postdoctorate of the first author. T.A. also had the support from FAPESP (no. 08/58101-9) and CNPq. The authors would like to thank Dr. Charles Jones for providing the MJO index used in this work and to Rodrigo José Bombardi for processing this index. We would also like to thank NOAA and the ECMWF for providing the data. Special acknowledgment goes to Dr. Brant Liebmann for his critical review and suggestions for the improvement of the paper. This paper is a contribution of the Brazilian National Institute of Science and Technology (INCT) for Climate Change funded by CNPq Grant Number 573797/2008-0 e FAPESP Grant Number 2008/57719-9.

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  1. Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Marília Harumi Shimizu & Tércio Ambrizzi

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  1. Marília Harumi Shimizu
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  2. Tércio Ambrizzi
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Correspondence to Marília Harumi Shimizu.

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Shimizu, M.H., Ambrizzi, T. MJO influence on ENSO effects in precipitation and temperature over South America. Theor Appl Climatol 124, 291–301 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1421-2

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