The sensitivity of the El Niño- Indian monsoon teleconnection to
Maritime Continent cold SST anomalies
Abstract
The study investigates how sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies
surrounding the Maritime Continent (MC) modulate the impact of
developing El Niño events on Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) rainfall. Using
a climate model we find that the ISM rainfall response to tropical
Pacific SST anomalies of eastern and central Pacific El Niño events is
sensitive to the details of cold SST anomalies surrounding the MC.
Furthermore, the remote rainfall responses to regions of SST anomalies
do not combine linearly and depend strongly on gradients in the SST
anomaly patterns. The cold SST anomalies around the MC have a
significantly larger impact on the ISM response to eastern Pacific
events than to central Pacific events. These results show the usefulness
of idealised modelling experiments, which offer insights into the
complex interactions of the ISM with modes of climate variability.