1. Introduction
The quasi-biweekly oscillation (QBWO) over the western North Pacific (WNP) during summer has a pronounced impact on climate over the East Asia–WNP region (Li and Wang 2005; Mao and Chan 2005; Zhou and Chan 2005; Yang et al. 2010; Li and Zhou 2013; Ren et al. 2013; Chen et al. 2015). Apparently, the strength of the climate impact of the QBWO is closely related to its intensity. Therefore, it is meaningful to study the variation of the QBWO intensity during summer over the WNP and its mechanisms.
The westward-propagating QBWO over the WNP during summer can be understood as n = 1 equatorial Rossby waves in the presence of convective coupling and monsoon mean flow (Chatterjee and Goswami 2004; Kikuchi and Wang 2009). They can be traced to the westward-propagating perturbations in the equatorial western Pacific (Mao and Chan 2005; Kikuchi and Wang 2009; Chen and Sui 2010). The n = 1 equatorial Rossby waves related to the QBWO can be driven unstable by convective coupling, in which the planetary boundary layer convergence plays an important role (Wang 1988; Wang and Li 1994; Chatterjee and Goswami 2004). The background surface moisture can change the vertical gradient of background moisture and influence vertical moisture transport by the low-frequency vertical motion of the QBWO, which is important to connective coupling (Chatterjee and Goswami 2004). Therefore, background surface moisture is critical to the development of the QBWO and the variation of the QBWO intensity over the WNP during summer. A significant feature of the Asian summer monsoon is the strong background easterly vertical shear (Wang and Xie 1996). The low-frequency moist n = 1 equatorial Rossby wave instability is remarkably enhanced (weakened) by background easterly (westerly) vertical shear (Wang and Xie 1996; Xie and Wang 1996). Background easterly (westerly) vertical shear confines the wave to the lower (upper) level, which generates stronger (weaker) Ekman pumping–induced heating and more (less) meridional heat flux. Furthermore, background easterly vertical shear over the Asian summer monsoon favors the northward propagation of the QBWO (Jiang et al. 2004; Drbohlav and Wang 2005; Wang and Duan 2015). Therefore, background zonal wind vertical shear is important to the development of the QBWO and the variation of the QBWO intensity over the WNP during summer.
Previous studies have revealed sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the tropics can influence the interannual and interdecadal variability of the QBWO intensity during summer over the WNP by changing the background atmospheric fields (Zveryaev 2002; Teng and Wang 2003; Lin and Li 2008; Wu and Cao 2016). The QBWO intensity during summer tends to enhance (weaken) over the tropical WNP during the developing El Niño (La Niña) year because of increased background easterly vertical shear and surface moisture (Teng and Wang 2003; Wu and Cao 2016). The developing El Niño events intensify the background easterly vertical shear over the tropical WNP during July–October, and then favor the development and northwestward emanation of moist Rossby waves away from the equatorial western and central Pacific, leading to enhanced 10–20-day westward-propagating intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) between 100°E and 180° (Teng and Wang 2003). The QBWO intensity of precipitation and mean precipitation in summer are significantly and positively correlated over south China and the middle and lower reach of the Yangtze River during past decades (Li et al. 2015a,b). When these regions are wetter than normal, large-scale background atmospheric conditions over the key QBWO activity region (such as the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea) favor the growth of the QBWO perturbations. Using 850-hPa zonal winds, Zveryaev (2002) revealed that the QBWO intensity was enhanced during summer over the tropical western Pacific around the mid- to late 1970s, which was caused by the sea surface warming in the Indian Ocean and associated enhanced convection. The QBWO intensity during mid-April to mid-May over the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea was enhanced around 1993/94, which is related to the sea surface warming near the Philippine Sea (Kajikawa and Wang 2012; Xiang and Wang 2013). Although previous studies investigated the variation of the QBWO intensity during summer over the WNP on the interannual and interdecadal time scales, whether it experienced an interdecadal change during recent decades is unrevealed.
The interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO)–Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) has a pronounced impact on global climate (Huang et al. 1999; Ding et al. 2009; Li et al. 2010; Zhu et al. 2011; Dai 2013; Dong and Lu 2013; Qian and Zhou 2014; Xu et al. 2015; Yu et al. 2015; Zhu et al. 2015). It shifted to a negative phase with La Niña–like SST anomalies in the tropical Pacific (Figs. 1, 2) around the late 1990s, inducing the change in background atmospheric fields. The influence of the phase transition of the IPO around the late 1990s on the seasonal climate (such as summer precipitation) was investigated by previous studies (e.g., Zhu et al. 2011). However, its impact on the QBWO intensity over the WNP during summer is unknown. Therefore, this work tries to address two questions: Can the phase transition of the IPO around the late 1990s influence the QBWO intensity over the WNP during summer on interdecadal time scales via modulating background atmospheric fields? What are the relative roles of the anomalous background atmospheric fields? As revealed in section 4, only the QBWO intensity over the WNP during late summer weakened significantly in response to the phase transition of the IPO. Therefore, the rest of this work is organized as follows. The data and methods used are described in section 2. Section 3 describes the background atmospheric field anomalies during late summer caused by the phase transition of the IPO around the late 1990s. The basic features of the weakened QBWO intensity over the WNP during late summer and the relative contribution of anomalous background atmospheric fields to it are explored in section 4. Finally, conclusions and a discussion are given in section 5.
2. Data and method
The datasets employed in this study include 1) daily outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) with a horizontal resolution of 2.5° × 2.5° (Liebmann and Smith 1996), provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); 2) 6-hourly and monthly reanalysis datasets from ERA-Interim with a horizontal resolution of 1.5° × 1.5° (Dee et al. 2011); 3) the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) monthly precipitation, with a horizontal resolution of 2.5° × 2.5° (Adler et al. 2003); 4) the monthly Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Merged Analysis of Precipitation, with a horizontal resolution of 2.5° × 2.5° (Xie and Arkin 1997); 5) the NOAA Extended Reconstructed SST, version 3b, with a horizontal resolution of 2.0° × 2.0° (Smith et al. 2008). The data during 1979–2013 are used in this study.
The Lanczos bandpass filter (Duchon 1979) was applied to the anomalies of daily data to extract 10–20-day and 20–80-day signals. The active (suppressed) QBWO events were selected when the standardized 10–20-day filtered OLR is less than −1.0 (greater than 1.0) at the peak phase. In this study, the late summer refers to August–November. The ISO intensity for each season is represented by the standard deviation of the filtered atmospheric variables in that season.
The intermediate 2.5-layer model with a two-layer free atmosphere and a well-mixed planetary boundary layer (Wang and Xie 1997) was employed to identify the role of background surface moisture and zonal wind vertical shear anomalies in the interdecadal change of the QBWO intensity. Under the equatorial β-plane approximation, the linearized primitive equations in pressure coordinates are employed in the model. Therefore, the background fields in the model are fixed, making it suitable to study the impact of background surface moisture and flow on the intensity and evolution of the ISO. Furthermore, prescribed by the realistic summer background fields, the model captures the essential structure and evolution characteristics of the boreal summer ISO (BSISO), such as the emanation of moist Rossby waves in the western Pacific and the westward and northward propagation of the BSISO in the Asian monsoon region (Wang and Xie 1997). Because of the two advantages described above, the model was used to explore the impact of background fields on the intensity and evolution of the BSISO by previous studies (Wang and Xie 1997; Tao et al. 2015; Deng and Li 2016; Deng et al. 2016).
A detail description of the model and the realistic 3D background fields prescribed in our study are shown in the appendix. Several experiments are designed to study the changes of the ISO intensity over the WNP under different background atmospheric fields. See more details about experiment designs in Table 1. The EXP-ctrl was integrated for 30 days. The sensitivity experiments are identical to EXP-ctrl except that the background surface moisture or/and zonal flow were changed. Note that the argument based on the experiments changes slightly if the strength of the initial perturbation increases or decreases 50% or if the center of the initial perturbation shifts to 2°N, 175°E (figure omitted).
Experiment designs.
3. The background atmospheric field anomalies caused by the phase transition of the IPO around the late 1990s
As revealed by previous studies (e.g., Zhu et al. 2011; Wang et al. 2012), the IPO shifted to a negative phase around the late 1990s. In this section, the background atmospheric field anomalies during late summer caused by the phase transition of the IPO are explored. Similar to Wang et al. (2012), the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis was applied to the 3-yr running averaged SST anomalies from 60°S to 60°N during late summer for 1950–2012. The second EOF (EOF2) mode depicts the IPO (Fig. 1). For convenience, the negative phase of the IPO and the reversed IPO index are shown in Fig. 1. The MTT of the reversed IPO index shows the IPO experienced an interdecadal change around 1997/98 (figure omitted). Therefore, the research period (1980–2012) is divided into two epochs: 1980–97 (epoch 1) and 1998–2012 (epoch 2). The difference in variables between epoch 2 and epoch 1 was calculated to explore the anomalous background fields caused by the phase transition of the IPO around the late 1990s.
Corresponding to the negative phase of the IPO, there were La Niña–like SST anomalies, with cold (warm) SST anomalies in the tropical central and eastern (western) Pacific (Figs. 1a, 2), and an enhanced Walker circulation (Dong and Lu 2013). Precipitation decreased over the equatorial central and eastern Pacific as a result of the enhanced Walker circulation (Fig. 3). The decreased precipitation induced a Gill pattern to the west of it (Gill 1980), with a pair of anticyclones (cyclones) in the lower (upper) troposphere (Fig. 4). Anomalous easterlies (westerlies) dominated in the lower (upper) troposphere over the tropical WNP (Fig. 4). This led to anomalous westerly vertical shear over the tropical WNP (Fig. 5d). The anomalous anticyclone in the lower troposphere (Fig. 4a) over the WNP triggered anomalous horizontal divergence and descent motion in the planetary boundary layer through Ekman pumping (Figs. 5a,b) that favored decreased surface moisture (Fig. 5c). The maximum center of the climatological surface moisture during late summer is located east of the Philippines (EOP; figure omitted). Therefore, the anomalous lower-level easterlies led to decreased surface moisture over the east of the EOP by advecting the climatological surface moisture. This may partly explain why the lower-level anomalous divergence is somewhat local over the east of the EOP (Fig. 5b), but the decreased surface moisture is large scale (Fig. 5c). Furthermore, the large-scale climatological convergence (figure omitted), which is related to the monsoon trough, enhanced the decreased surface moisture over the WNP during late summer. The uncertainty of the ERA-Interim data may also have partly led to the inconsistency between the spatial pattern of lower-level anomalous divergence and the decreased surface moisture over the east of the EOP. The decreased surface moisture dominated in ICOADS data over the east of the EOP (figure omitted), but there are some small regions with increased surface moisture. This indicates that there is some uncertainty in the ERA-Interim data. The large-scale spatial pattern of the decreased surface moisture based on ERA-Interim data is basically similar to that based on ICOADS data. Therefore, the decreased surface moisture revealed by ERA-Interim data is basically reliable.
Overall, the phase transition of the IPO around the late 1990s led to decreased surface moisture and anomalous westerly vertical shear over the tropical WNP via air–sea interaction in the tropical Pacific. These background atmospheric field anomalies modulated the interdecadal variation of the QBWO intensity over the WNP, as revealed in the following section.
4. The weakened intensity of atmospheric QBWO over the WNP during late summer around the late 1990s
a. Basic features
As revealed in section 3, the decreased background surface moisture and the anomalous background westerly vertical shear over the WNP during late summer are remarkable in epoch 2. As a result, the QBWO intensity decreased significantly there, which is reflected by various atmospheric variables (Fig. 6). The core region with the weakened QBWO intensity is located in the EOP. Because of the Rossby wave response to the anomalous convection over the EOP, the QBWO intensity of zonal wind in the lower troposphere decreased southwest and northwest of it (Fig. 6g). The significantly weakened QBWO intensity of specific humidity, geopotential height, and meridional wind in the lower troposphere also appeared north of the EOP (Figs. 6c,d,h). We checked the difference in the QWBO intensity (represented by standard deviations of 10–20-day filtered OLR) by sliding bimonthly from May to December over the WNP between 1998–2012 and 1980–1997 (figure omitted) and found that the QBWO intensity decreased from August to November. Because of the long memory of the ocean, the climatological background surface moisture and the zonal wind vertical shear in November over the tropical WNP are somewhat similar to those in August–October (figure omitted). Therefore, the late summer is defined as August–November in our study. Besides, over the far northwest of the EOP, six of eight variables show enhanced QBWO intensity (Fig. 6), which is closely related to the local increased surface moisture (Fig. 5c) and enhanced background convection caused by the local background sea surface warming (Figs. 2, 3). Based on the 20–80-day filtered OLR, we found that there was weakened intensity of 20–80-day ISO along 10°N over the WNP, but the statistical significance is weak (figure omitted).
Figure 7 shows the vertical profile of the difference in the QBWO intensity over the EOP between the two epochs. The weakened QBWO intensity mainly occurred in the middle and lower troposphere. In the upper troposphere, the QBWO intensity of the vertical relative vorticity, the horizontal divergence, the zonal wind, and the meridional wind was enhanced in spite of weak statistical significance (Figs. 7d–g). This may be partly caused by the anomalous background westerly vertical shear over the WNP, which tends to trap the Rossby waves in the upper troposphere (Wang and Xie 1996). Detected by MTT, the area-averaged QBWO intensity over the EOP in the middle and lower troposphere experienced an interdecadal decrease around 1997/98 (Figs. 8a,c–f,h), corresponding to the phase transition of the IPO (Fig. 1b). To the southwest of the EOP, the QBWO intensity of the zonal wind in the lower troposphere also underwent an interdecadal decrease around 1997/98 (Fig. 8g). The QBWO intensity decreased about 10.0%–20.0% for the atmospheric variables (Fig. 8).
To further demonstrate the weakened QBWO intensity over the WNP, the evolution of the QBWO events in the two epochs are shown in Figs. 9 and 10. The QBWO active (suppressed) events were selected when the standardized 10–20-day filtered OLR over the EOP exceeds minus (plus) one standard deviation at the peak phase. There are 106 (69) active and 110 (59) suppressed events in epoch 1 (epoch 2). Fewer QBWO events in epoch 2 also indicate that the QBWO intensity weakened in epoch 2. The composite evolution of the QBWO events are the difference between the QBWO active and suppressed events. The results are similar when the evolution of the QBWO active or suppressed events are analyzed solely. Day 0 indicates the reference time when OLR anomalies over the EOP are at the peak phase. From day −6 to day +3, the phase evolution of the QBWO events are similar in the two epochs (Fig. 9). At day −6, there are positive vertical relative vorticity perturbations and an anomalous cyclone at the 850-hPa level, corresponding to the enhanced convection over the southeast region of the EOP. The perturbations become enhanced while moving northwestward from day −6 to day 0 and reach the peak phase over the EOP at day 0. From day 0 to day +3, the perturbations weaken while propagating northwestward. However, because of the decreased background surface moisture and the anomalous background westerly vertical shear not favoring the development of perturbations, the perturbations are much weaker in epoch 2 from day −3 to day +3 relative to those in epoch 1 (Fig. 9). At day−7 and day−5 (figure omitted), the perturbations are basically the same in the two epochs over the equatorial western Pacific, from which the QBWO events originated (Mao and Chan 2005; Chen and Sui 2010). Therefore, the anomalous background atmospheric fields mainly influenced the growth of the QBWO perturbations while they propagate northwestward over the WNP instead of their initiation. The local evolution of the perturbations over the EOP during QBWO events are also similar in the two epochs (Fig. 10), but the amplitude of the perturbations is weaker in epoch 2. For the OLR, the 850-hPa specific humidity, the 850-hPa vertical relative vorticity, and the 850-hPa kinetic energy, the amplitude decreased about 13.2%, 27.6%, 19.6%, and 23.9%, respectively (Fig. 10). The difference in perturbations between the two epochs is at its maximum when the perturbations reach the peak phase (Fig. 10).
b. Relative role of decreased background surface moisture and anomalous background westerly vertical shear based on a modeling study
Both the anomalous decreased background surface moisture and the background westerly vertical shear contributed to the weakened QBWO intensity. What about their relative contribution? The question is addressed by a modeling study in this subsection. We mainly focus on the core region (that is the EOP) with the weakened QBWO intensity. The precipitation and lower-level kinetic energy over this region are used to measure the ISO intensity in the model. In the control experiment, prescribed by climatological background fields and initiated by a perturbation centered at 4°N, 170°E, the 2.5-layer model can basically capture the propagation and development of the initial perturbation over the equatorial western Pacific related to the observed northwestward-propagating QBWO over the WNP during late summer for 1980–97 (cf. Figs. 9, 11). The wavelength, northward, and westward-propagating speeds of the low-frequency perturbation in the control experiment (EXP-ctrl) are similar to those of the observed QBWO. The wavelength of the low-frequency perturbation in the EXP-ctrl is about 6000 km that is consistent with that of the observed QBWO (cf. Figs. 9, 11). The northward- and westward-propagating speeds of the low-frequency perturbation in the EXP-ctrl are about 1.2 and 6.4 m s−1 respectively, which are similar to those of the observed QBWO (about 1.6 and 4.1 m s−1, respectively). The low-frequency perturbation in the EXP-ctrl also reaches its peak phase around the EOP (Fig. 11). The amplitude of low-frequency zonal wind in the EXP-ctrl is comparable to that related to the observed QBWO (cf. Figs. 9, 11). Note that Fig. 9 shows the difference between the QBWO active and suppressed events. Therefore, the amplitude of wind for the QBWO active or suppressed events during 1980–1997 is about half of that shown in the left panel of Fig. 9. The amplitude of the low-frequency meridional wind in the EXP-ctrl is much weaker than that related to the observed QBWO (cf. Figs. 9, 11). Based on the discussion above, the 2.5-layer model can be used to carry out experiments to identify the influence of the background atmospheric fields on the development of the initial perturbation over the equatorial western Pacific related to the observed QBWO, which is the issue with which our study is concerned. Because the 2.5-layer model is a simplified model, it cannot reproduce the oscillation period of the QBWO. The mechanisms for the periodic oscillation of the QBWO are beyond the scope of our study.
For the sensitivity experiments, the decreased background surface moisture and/or anomalous background westerly vertical shear over the WNP were added to the climatology (Table 1). In the sensitivity experiments, the evolution of the low-frequency perturbation is similar to that in EXP-ctrl (Fig. 11). However, the amplitude of the low-frequency perturbation over the EOP weakens remarkably (Fig. 12). The amplitude is weakest in EXP-qs&u_shear. The amplitude is weaker in EXP-qs than that in EXP-u_shear (Fig. 12). This indicates that the decreased background surface moisture plays a more important role than the anomalous background westerly vertical shear in weakening the QBWO intensity. Compared to EXP-ctrl, the accumulated precipitation (lower level of kinetic energy) over the EOP in the EXP-qs&u_shear, EXP-qs, and EXP-u_shear decreases 24.1% (33.3%), 17.2% (22.2%), and 9.5% (16.3%), respectively (Fig. 13). EXP-qs (EXP-u_shear) accounts for about 70% (45%) of the decreased accumulated precipitation and the lower level of kinetic energy in the EXP-qs&u_shear. These results further support the finding that the decreased background surface moisture is more important to the weakened QBWO intensity over the EOP.
5. Conclusions and discussion
The IPO shifted to a negative phase around the late 1990s. In the present study, how this interdecadal change influenced the background atmospheric fields and hence modulated the QBWO intensity over the WNP during late summer is demonstrated. There were La Niña–like SST anomalies and an enhanced Walker circulation in response to the phase transition of the IPO. This led to decreased precipitation in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific. The decreased precipitation induced a Gill pattern to the west of it, with an anomalous anticyclone (cyclone) in the lower (upper) troposphere over the WNP. Therefore, anomalous background westerly vertical shear dominated over the tropical WNP. Furthermore, the anomalous anticyclone triggered anomalous horizontal divergence and descent motion in the planetary boundary layer, which led to decreased surface moisture over the tropical WNP. The climatological convergence and the zonal advection of climatological surface moisture by the anomalous lower-level easterlies also contributed to the decreased surface moisture over the tropical WNP.
The decreased background surface moisture and anomalous background westerly vertical shear suppressed the development of QBWO perturbations and weakened the QBWO intensity over the WNP during late summer. As reflected by various atmospheric variables, the core region with the weakened QBWO intensity is located in the lower and middle troposphere over the EOP. Based on the standardized 10–20-day filtered OLR over the EOP, QBWO active and suppressed events in the two epochs were selected. Fewer QBWO events occurred after the late 1990s. The composite evolution of the QBWO events in the two epochs further demonstrates that the QBWO intensity weakened after the late 1990s.
Prescribed by the decreased background surface moisture or/and anomalous background westerly vertical shear over the tropical WNP, a modeling study was carried out to explore the relative contribution of the two factors to the weakened QBWO intensity over the EOP. Based on the evolution of area-averaged precipitation and lower kinetic energy over the EOP and their accumulation, the decreased background surface moisture plays a more important role than the anomalous background westerly vertical shear. Note that the convective parameterization in the model is based on the vertically integrated moisture convergence. A further study with different convective parameterizations is needed to identify the relative role of the decreased background surface moisture and the anomalous background westerly vertical shear.
The QBWO events over the WNP during late summer originate from the equatorial western Pacific (Mao and Chan 2005; Chen and Sui 2010). The QBWO intensity over the WNP mainly is modulated by the local background atmospheric fields. Therefore, the QBWO intensity weakened remarkably in response to the phase transition of the IPO around the late 1990s. Whereas the 20–80-day ISO events over the WNP originate from the equatorial Indian Ocean (Annamalai and Slingo 2001; Kemball-Cook and Wang 2001), the intensity of the 20–80-day ISO over the WNP is not only influenced by the local background atmospheric fields, but also modulated by other factors. This may explain why the response of the 20–80-day ISO intensity over the WNP to the phase transition of the IPO is weak. Besides, the anomalies of the background atmospheric fields induced by the phase transition of the IPO (Fig. 3) and the QBWO activities over the tropical Pacific during summer are region dependent (Kikuchi and Wang 2009). Therefore, influence of the phase transition of the IPO on the QBWO intensity over other regions in the tropical Pacific during late summer needs further study.
The La Niña–like SST anomalies in the tropical Pacific (Fig. 2) are the combined contribution of the IPO, global warming, and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) (Dong and Zhou 2014). The cooling over the tropical central and eastern Pacific is primarily dominated by the phase transition of the IPO, which overwhelms the global warming signal and warming caused by the AMO (Dong and Zhou 2014). In the tropical western Pacific, the warming caused by the phase transition of the IPO is enhanced by the global warming signal. There is significant warming in the tropical Indian Ocean (TIO) and the tropical Atlantic (TA; Fig. 2). Recent studies show that the sea surface warming in the two regions also contributed to the La Niña–like SST anomalies and enhanced the Walker circulation in the tropical Pacific during the past three decades (Luo et al. 2012; Han et al. 2014; McGregor et al. 2014; Li et al. 2015c; Kucharski et al. 2016). The correlations of the QBWO intensity over the EOP and the background atmospheric fields over the WNP during late summer with low-frequency (greater than 3 years) SST modes indicates that the IPO may be more crucial to the weakened QBWO intensity (Table 2). When the reversed IPO signal is removed, the correlations of the QBWO intensity and the background atmospheric fields with low-frequency SST modes in the tropical Indian and Atlantic Oceans change remarkably (columns 4–6 of Table 2), whereas the changes for the correlations of the QBWO intensity and background atmospheric fields with the reversed IPO are relatively small (column 3 of Table 2) when removing all of the low-frequency SST modes in the tropical Indian and Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, the interdecadal changepoint of the weakened QBWO intensity around the late 1990s is consistent with that of the IPO. Therefore, the phase transition of the IPO probably is more important to the weakened QBWO intensity. The mechanisms for the phase transition of the IPO around the late 1990s and its connection with the sea surface warming in the tropical Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, which need to be studied further, are beyond the scope of this study.
Correlations of the QBWO intensity over the EOP (see Fig. 8) and the background atmospheric fields over the WNP during late summer with low-frequency (greater than 3 yr) SST modes. The low-frequency SST modes include the reversed IPO, the EOF1 of 3-yr running averaged SST anomalies in the tropical Indian Ocean (25°S–25°N, 40°–120°E), and the EOF1 and EOF2 of 3-yr running averaged SST anomalies in the tropical Atlantic Ocean (25°S–25°N, 290°–358°E). Values in the parentheses of column 3 are correlations of the QBWO intensity and background atmospheric fields with the reversed IPO when all of the low-frequency SST modes in the tropical Indian and Atlantic Ocean are removed. Values in the parentheses of columns 4–6 are the correlations of the QBWO intensity and background atmospheric fields, respectively, with the low-frequency SST modes in the TIO and TA when the reversed IPO signal is removed. A 3-yr running average is applied to the time series of the QBWO intensity and background atmospheric fields before calculating the correlations and partial correlations. The WNP refers to the region marked by the large rectangle in Fig. 5.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Dr. Lu Wang for sharing the model code. The authors are grateful to the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which led to a significant improvement of the manuscript. This research was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 41421004), the China National 973 project 2015CB453200, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 41325018, 41730964, and 41575079), and the CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Team “Regional environmental high resolution numerical simulation.”
APPENDIX
A 2.5-Layer Atmospheric Model
The model covers from 40°S to 40°N with a horizontal resolution of 5° longitude × 2° latitude. The fluxes of mass, momentum, and heat normal to the meridional boundaries vanish. The zonal boundary condition is periodic around the globe. Finite differences are used in both space and time. The time step is 10 min. A Fourier transform is carried out in the zonal direction with a truncation of one-fourth of the zonal grid points to solve (A8). For each wavenumber, an equation with y derivatives can be obtained and solved by matrix inversion. The model parameters used in the numerical calculation are listed in Table A1.
Model parameters.
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