The ENSO Teleconnection to the Tropical Atlantic Ocean: Contributions of the Remote and Local SSTs to Rainfall Variability in the Tropical Americas*

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Abstract
Recent developments in Tropical Atlantic Variability (TAV) identify the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) as one of the leading factors in the interannual climate variability of the basin. An ENSO event results in Tropic-wide anomalies in the atmospheric circulation that have a direct effect on precipitation variability, as well as an indirect effect, that is, one mediated by sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies generated in the remote ocean basins. In order to separate the relative contributions of the atmospheric and oceanic components of the ENSO teleconnection to the tropical Atlantic Ocean, results from two ensembles of atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) experiments, differing in oceanic boundary conditions, are compared. AGCM integrations performed with the Community Climate Model version 3 (CCM3), forced by global, observed SST during 1950–94 reproduce the observed ENSO-related rainfall anomalies over the tropical Americas and adjacent Atlantic. A parallel ensemble of integr... Abstract Recent developments in Tropical Atlantic Variability (TAV) identify the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) as one of the leading factors in the interannual climate variability of the basin. An ENSO event results in Tropic-wide anomalies in the atmospheric circulation that have a direct effect on precipitation variability, as well as an indirect effect, that is, one mediated by sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies generated in the remote ocean basins. In order to separate the relative contributions of the atmospheric and oceanic components of the ENSO teleconnection to the tropical Atlantic Ocean, results from two ensembles of atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) experiments, differing in oceanic boundary conditions, are compared. AGCM integrations performed with the Community Climate Model version 3 (CCM3), forced by global, observed SST during 1950–94 reproduce the observed ENSO-related rainfall anomalies over the tropical Americas and adjacent Atlantic. A parallel ensemble of integr...