Dong et al. (2025) ENSO Influence on Subsequent Early‐Summer North American Atmospheric Circulation: Role of Land‐Atmosphere Interaction

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-13
• Authors: Yinshuo Dong, Lingfeng Tao, Haishan Chen, Danping Cai, Yang Zhou
• DOI: 10.1029/2025gl118192

Research Groups

Not specified in abstract.

Short Summary

This study identifies an ocean-land-atmosphere relay mechanism where El Niño-induced sea surface temperature anomalies enhance moisture transport into North America, leading to land temperature anomalies that feedback on the atmosphere, weakening the westerly jet and extending ENSO's influence into early summer.

Objective

• To highlight the additional role of land-atmosphere interactions in modulating North American atmospheric circulation during ENSO-post early summer.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: North America (continental to hemispheric scale, including midlatitudes and higher latitudes around 50°N).
• Temporal Scale: ENSO-post early summer (seasonal to interannual, focusing on delayed impacts).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Numerical simulations (specific model not named).
• Data sources: Reanalysis data.

Main Results

• An ocean-land-atmosphere relay mechanism is identified for ENSO's delayed impacts.
• El Niño-induced persistent upstream sea surface temperature anomalies enhance moisture transport into North America.
• This triggers a dipole pattern of land temperature anomalies (cooling in midlatitudes, warming at higher latitudes) through surface turbulent latent heat flux and shortwave radiation.
• These land surface anomalies feedback on the atmosphere via modifications in sensible heat flux and longwave radiation.
• This feedback weakens the low-level meridional air temperature gradient and atmospheric baroclinicity.
• The resulting negative transient eddy vorticity forcing induces an equivalent barotropic geopotential high anomaly.
• The westerly jet around 50°N is weakened.

Contributions

• Underscores the essential and additional role of land-atmosphere coupling in extending ENSO's summer influence beyond traditional air-sea interaction pathways.
• Identifies a novel ocean-land-atmosphere relay mechanism for ENSO's delayed impacts.

Funding

Not specified in abstract.

Citation

@article{Dong2025ENSO,
  author = {Dong, Yinshuo and Tao, Lingfeng and Chen, Haishan and Cai, Danping and Zhou, Yang},
  title = {ENSO Influence on Subsequent Early‐Summer North American Atmospheric Circulation: Role of Land‐Atmosphere Interaction},
  journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025gl118192},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025gl118192}
}