Identification

Title

Differences in the Indonesian seaway in a coupled climate model and their relevance to pliocene climate and El Niño

Abstract

A fully coupled general circulation model is used to investigate the hypothesis that during Pliocene times tectonic changes in the Indonesian seas modified the Indo-Pacific heat transport and thus increased the zonal sea surface temperature gradient in the equatorial Pacific to its large, current magnitude. We find that widening the Indonesian seaway by moving the northern tip of New Guinea south of the equator leads to an increased inflow of South Pacific waters into the Indian Ocean, but because of potential vorticity constraints on cross-equatorial flow it also leads to reductions in both the inflow of North Pacific waters and the total Indonesian throughflow transport. The reduced throughflow is matched by increased eastward transport of warm and fresh North Pacific surface waters along the equator to the central equatorial Pacific. As a result, the Intertropical Convergence Zone lies closer to the equator and the western Pacific Warm Pool expands farther east than for present-day conditions. This reduces the delayed oscillator component of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and enhances the role of stochastic perturbations. Thus, with a more open Indonesian seaway, ENSO becomes weaker and more irregular.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7571d3s

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2009-03-26T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact