A classification of ENSO events in a coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM (original) (raw)

Abstract

A clustering technique is designed in order to group into a few classes the ENSO events occurring in 100 years of data from a coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM (ECHAM4-ORCA) simulation. Tropical Pacific heat content anomalies during the 15 months previous to the event's peak (as identified in the Niño3 SSTA Index) are compared in terms of two definitions of distance. A classification of ENSO events emerges which divides them into three classes. These are characterized by a composite built as the average of all members in a given group. Significant features in the composites are identified by means of tests on the class mean and median. In the first group, the warming occurs shortly after cold anomalies in the equatorial Pacific. Warm off-equatorial anomalies growing in the western ocean during this cold phase induce the transition to the warm one once they reach the equator. Though not immediately preceded by cold anomalies, anomalous heat in the western off-equator also leads the eq...

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