STUDY OF A COMPREHENSIVE MONITORING INDEX FOR TWO TYPES OF ENSO EVENTS

CAO Lu; SUN Cheng-hu; REN Fu-min; YUAN Yuan; JIANG Jing

Abstract:

Some recent studies presented two existing types of ENSO events, one is the Eastern-Pacific (EP) type and the other the Central-Pacific (CP) type. This study examined the monitoring ability of several current operational ENSO indices. The results indicated that a single index could not distinguish the EP and CP in the historical ENSO events during 1950-2009. The Niño 3 index may only be suitable for monitoring the EP-type ENSO, while the Niño 4 index works only for the CP-type ENSO. In order to capture the occurrence of ENSO events and distinguish the type, we considered a new monitoring index group using Niño 3 and Niño 4 indices. Further analysis confirmed that this index group can monitor different types of historical ENSO events with different spatial distribution of sea surface temperature. It has a good performance in determining the characteristics of the ENSO events, including peak intensity, onset, decay, and mature phase.

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CAO Lu, SUN Cheng-hu, REN Fu-min, et al. STUDY OF A COMPREHENSIVE MONITORING INDEX FOR TWO TYPES OF ENSO EVENTS [J]. Journal of Tropical Meteorology, 2015, 21(2): 153-160.

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STUDY OF A COMPREHENSIVE MONITORING INDEX FOR TWO TYPES OF ENSO EVENTS

Jiangsu Meteorological Observatory, Nanjing 210008 China

Rev Recd Date: 2015-01-21

Abstract: Some recent studies presented two existing types of ENSO events, one is the Eastern-Pacific (EP) type and the other the Central-Pacific (CP) type. This study examined the monitoring ability of several current operational ENSO indices. The results indicated that a single index could not distinguish the EP and CP in the historical ENSO events during 1950-2009. The Niño 3 index may only be suitable for monitoring the EP-type ENSO, while the Niño 4 index works only for the CP-type ENSO. In order to capture the occurrence of ENSO events and distinguish the type, we considered a new monitoring index group using Niño 3 and Niño 4 indices. Further analysis confirmed that this index group can monitor different types of historical ENSO events with different spatial distribution of sea surface temperature. It has a good performance in determining the characteristics of the ENSO events, including peak intensity, onset, decay, and mature phase.

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STUDY OF A COMPREHENSIVE MONITORING INDEX FOR TWO TYPES OF ENSO EVENTS

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