AO, PNA, & SAM Models

In Chapter 11, we developed a general formulation based on Laplace’s Tidal Equations (LTE) to aid in the analysis of standing wave climate models, focusing on the ENSO and QBO behaviors in the book.  As a means of cross-validating this formulation, it makes sense to test the LTE model against other climate indices. So far we have extended this to PDO, AMO, NAO, and IOD, and to complete the set, in this post we will evaluate the northern latitude indices comprised of the Arctic Oscillation/Northern Annular Mode (AO/NAM) and the Pacific North America (PNA) pattern, and the southern latitude index referred to as the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). We will first evaluate AO and PNA in comparison to its close relative NAO and then SAM …

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The Indian Ocean Dipole

In the book, we modeled the ENSO and QBO climate behaviors. Based on the approach described therein we have since extended this to the PDO, AMO, and NAO indices, with the IOD the focus of this post.

In Chapter 12, we concentrated on the Pacific ocean dipole referred to as ENSO (El Nino/Southern Oscillation).  A dipole that shares some of the characteristics of ENSO is the neighboring Indian Ocean Dipole and its gradient measure the Dipole Mode Index.

The IOD is important because it is correlated with India subcontinent monsoons. It also shows a correlation to ENSO, which is quite apparent by comparing specific peak positions, with a correlation coefficient of 0.2.  This post will describe the differences found via perturbing the ENSO model …

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North Atlantic Oscillation

In Chapter 12 of the book, we derived an ENSO standing wave model based on an analytical Laplace’s Tidal Equation formulation. The results of this were so promising that they were also applied successfully to two other similar oceanic dipoles, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which were reported at last year’s American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference. For that presentation, an initial attempt was made to model the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which is a more rapid cycle, consisting of up to two periods per year, in contrast to the El Nino peaks of the ENSO time-series which occur every 2 to 7 years. Those results were somewhat inconclusive, so are revisited in the following post:

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