We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Ocean Salinity Aspects of the Ningaloo Niño.
- Authors
Guo, Yaru; Li, Yuanlong; Wang, Fan; Wei, Yuntao
- Abstract
Ningaloo Niño—the interannually occurring warming episode in the southeast Indian Ocean (SEIO)—has strong signatures in ocean temperature and circulation and exerts profound impacts on regional climate and marine biosystems. Analysis of observational data and eddy-resolving regional ocean model simulations reveals that the Ningaloo Niño/Niña can also induce pronounced variability in ocean salinity, causing large-scale sea surface salinity (SSS) freshening of 0.15–0.20 psu in the SEIO during its warm phase. Model experiments are performed to understand the underlying processes. This SSS freshening is mutually caused by the increased local precipitation (~68%) and enhanced freshwater transport of the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF; ~28%) during Ningaloo Niño events. The effects of other processes, such as local winds and evaporation, are secondary (~18%). The ITF enhances the southward freshwater advection near the eastern boundary, which is critical in causing the strong freshening (>0.20 psu) near the Western Australian coast. Owing to the strong modulation effect of the ITF, SSS near the coast bears a higher correlation with El Niño–Southern Oscillation (0.57, 0.77, and 0.70 with the Niño-3, Niño-4, and Niño-3.4 indices, respectively) than sea surface temperature (−0.27, −0.42, and −0.35) during 1993–2016. Yet, an idealized model experiment with artificial damping for salinity anomaly indicates that ocean salinity has limited impact on ocean near-surface stratification and thus minimal feedback effect on the warming of Ningaloo Niño.
- Subjects
INTERNATIONAL Tennis Federation; SEAWATER salinity; EL Nino; OCEAN temperature; OCEAN circulation; OCEAN; OCEAN-atmosphere interaction
- Publication
Journal of Climate, 2021, Vol 34, Issue 15, p6141
- ISSN
0894-8755
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0890.1