A nonlinear full-field conceptual model for ENSO diversity

Abstract As the strongest year-to-year fluctuation of the global climate system, El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) exhibits spatial–temporal diversity, which challenges the classical ENSO theories that mainly focus on the canonical eastern Pacific (EP) type. Besides, the complicated interplay between the interannual anomaly fields and the decadally varying mean state is another difficulty in current ENSO theory. To better account for these issues, the nonlinear two-region recharge paradigm model is extended to a three-region full-field conceptual model to capture the physics in the western Pacific (WP), central Pacific (CP), and EP regions. The results show that the extended conceptual model displays a rich dynamical behavior as parameters setting the efficiencies of upwelling and zonal advection are varied. The model can not only generate El Niño bursting behavior but also simulate the statistical asymmetries between the two types of El Niños and the warm and cold phases of ENSO. Finally, since both the anomaly fields and mean states are simulated by the model, it provides a simple tool to investigate their interactions. The strengthening of the upwelling efficiency, which can be seen as an analogy to a cooling thermocline associated with the oceanic tunnel to the midlatitudes, will increase the zonal gradient of the mean state temperature between the WP and EP, i.e., resembling a negative Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) pattern along the equatorial Pacific. The influence of the zonal advection efficiency is quite the opposite, i.e., its strengthening will reduce the zonal gradient of the mean state temperature along the equatorial Pacific.