A proposed mechanism for asymmetric duration of El Niño and La Niña

El Niño and La Niña exhibit significant asymmetry not only in their spatial structure but also in their duration. Most El Niños terminate rapidly after maturing near the end of the calendar year, whereas many La Niñas persist into the following year and often reintensify in boreal winter. Through atmospheric general circulation model experiments, it is shown that the nonlinear response of atmospheric deep convection to the polarity of equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies causes an asymmetric evolution of surface wind anomalies over the far western Pacific around the mature phase of El Niño and La Niña. Because of the eastward displacement of precipitation anomalies in the equatorial Pacific during El Niño compared to La Niña, surface winds in the western Pacific are more affected by SST forcing outside the equatorial Pacific, which acts to terminate the Pacific event.

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Copyright 2011 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.
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Author Okumura, Yuko
Ohba, Masamichi
Deser, Clara
Ueda, Hiroaki
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2011-08-01T00:00:00
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T19:09:22.614810
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:17541
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Okumura, Yuko, Ohba, Masamichi, Deser, Clara, Ueda, Hiroaki. (2011). A proposed mechanism for asymmetric duration of El Niño and La Niña. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7xw4m3s. Accessed 19 March 2025.

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