• DOI:10.1175/2011JCLI3983.1
• Corpus ID: 129906820

The Impacts of Inter–El Niño Variability on the Tropical Atlantic and Northeast Brazil Climate

@article{Rodrigues2011TheIO,
  title={The Impacts of Inter–El Ni{\~n}o Variability on the Tropical Atlantic and Northeast Brazil Climate},
  author={Regina R. Rodrigues and Reindert J. Haarsma and Edmo J. D. Campos and T{\'e}rcio Ambrizzi},
  journal={Journal of Climate},
  year={2011},
  volume={24},
  pages={3402-3422}
}

• R. Rodrigues, R. Haarsma, +1 author T. Ambrizzi
• Published 1 July 2011
• Environmental Science
• Journal of Climate

AbstractIn this study, observations and numerical simulations are used to investigate how different El Nino events affect the development of SST anomalies in the Atlantic and how this relates to the Brazilian northeast (NE) precipitation. The results show that different types of El Nino have different impacts on the SST anomalies of the equatorial and tropical South Atlantic but a similar SST response in the tropical North Atlantic. Strong and long (weak and short) El Ninos with the main heating source located in the eastern (central) Pacific generate cold (warm) anomalies in the cold tongue and Benguela upwelling regions during boreal winter and spring. When the SST anomalies in the eastern equatorial and tropical South Atlantic are cold (warm), the meridional SST gradient across the equator is positive (negative) and the ITCZ is not allowed (allowed) to move southward during the boreal spring; as a consequence, the precipitation is below (above) the average over the NE. Thus, strong and long (weak and s...