Enhanced biennial variability in the Pacific due to Atlantic capacitor effect.
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the variability in the Pacific subtropical highs (PSHs) have major impacts on social and ecological systems. Here we present an Atlantic capacitor effect mechanism to suggest that the Atlantic is a key pacemaker of the biennial variability in the Pacific including that in ENSO and the PSHs during recent decades. The 'charging' (that is, ENSO imprinting the North Tropical Atlantic (NTA) sea surface temperature (SST) via an atmospheric bridge mechanism) and 'discharging' (that is, the NTA SST triggering the following ENSO via a subtropical teleconnection mechanism) processes alternate, generating the biennial rhythmic changes in the Pacific. Since the early 1990s, a warmer Atlantic due to the positive phase of Atlantic multidecadal oscillation and global warming trend has provided more favourable background state for the Atlantic capacitor effect, giving rise to enhanced biennial variability in the Pacific that may increase the occurrence frequency of severe natural hazard events.
Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA.|Guangdong Province Key Laboratory for Coastal Ocean Variation and Disaster Prediction, Department of Oceanography, College of Ocean and Meteorology, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang 524088, China.
Lei
0000-0002-9015-5422
L
Wang
Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA.
Jin-Yi
0000-0001-6156-7623
JY
Yu
Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA.
Houk
0000-0002-4284-0660
H
Paek