JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 115, D24122, doi:10.

1029/2010JD014761, 2010

Different impacts of two types of Pacific Ocean warming

on Southeast Asian rainfall during boreal winter
Juan Feng,1 Lin Wang,1 Wen Chen,1,2 Soi Kun Fong,3 and Ka Cheng Leong3
Received 4 July 2010; revised 3 October 2010; accepted 8 October 2010; published 31 December 2010.
[1] The impacts of conventional El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and ENSO
Modoki on wintertime Southeast Asian rainfall and related mechanisms are studied using
the method of partial regression and correlation and numerical simulations of a simple
baroclinic model. Results show that the Southeast Asian rainfall associated with these two
kinds of ENSO exhibits different spatial distributions. In the case of El Niño, wet
conditions are observed over south China, and dry conditions are seen over the
Philippines, Borneo, Celebes, and Sulawesi. In contrast, for El Niño Modoki, the negative
rainfall anomalies around the Philippines are weaker and are located more northward
compared to the El Niño counterpart. The different Southeast Asian rainfalls that are
related to ENSO and ENSO Modoki are attributed to the different anomalous Walker
circulation and low‐level anticyclone around the Philippines. Both the Philippine
anticyclone and the descending branch center of the Walker circulation over the western
North Pacific occupy a smaller domain and are located more northward during El Niño
Modoki than during El Niño. All of these factors favor the difference in the Southeast
Asian rainfall anomalies between the two events. Numerical experiments also suggest that
the different low‐level atmospheric responses are mainly induced by different diabatic
cooling over the western North Pacific related to El Niño and El Niño Modoki.
Citation: Feng, J., L. Wang, W. Chen, S. K. Fong, and K. C. Leong (2010), Different impacts of two types of Pacific Ocean
warming on Southeast Asian rainfall during boreal winter, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D24122, doi:10.1029/2010JD014761.

1. Introduction the variation of wintertime Southeast Asian rainfall and its

related mechanisms.
[2] During boreal winter many Southeast Asian areas
[3] Among the factors that influence Southeast Asian
experience a wet monsoon season, while the Indo‐China
rainfall, the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is regarded
peninsula and the Philippines are in the dry season [Cheang, as the most important one [Hamada et al., 2002; Lau and
1987; Chang et al., 2005]. Because the inhabitants of this
Nath, 2003; Aldrian and Susanto, 2003; McBride et al.,
region depend heavily on the rains for agriculture and many
2003; Chan and Zhou, 2005; W. Zhou et al., 2007a,
other activities, the variability of wintertime rainfall can
2007b; L. Zhou et al., 2010]. Many studies have shown that
exert both social and economical influences on Southeast
Southeast Asia tends to experience less (more) rainfall
Asian countries [Cheang, 1987]. Wintertime Southeast
during El Niño (La Niña) winters [e.g., McBride et al., 2003;
Asian rainfall can also extend its effects on remote regions,
Juneng and Tangang, 2005; W. Zhou et al., 2009]. Such
in addition to its local influence. For example, the rainfall in
changes in rainfall can be attributed to the anomalous
this region is usually associated with strong convective
Walker circulation and the associated anomalous anticy-
activities, especially over the Maritime Continent, which
clone (cyclone) over the subtropical western North Pacific
represents a dominant heat source for the atmospheric cir- [Zhang et al., 1996; Wang et al., 2000; Chang et al., 2004].
culation [Neale and Slingo, 2003]. The upper‐tropospheric
When El Niño occurs the anticyclone and associated des-
divergent outflow from this region has been shown, at least
cending motion suppress the convective activities over
in an idealized model, to be a major source of wave activity Southeast Asia and favor less rainfall in this region. In this
due to the generation of global rotational flow [Sardeshmukh
process the local air‐sea coupling is believed to play an
and Hoskins, 1988]. Therefore, it is important to investigate
important role [Wang et al., 2003].
[4] In recent years a new type of tropical Pacific sea
1
Center for Monsoon System Research, Institute of Atmospheric surface temperature (SST) warming pattern, named “El Niño
Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. Modoki,” has been proposed [Ashok et al., 2007]. When it
2
Also at State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric occurs, a warm SST anomaly is observed in the central
Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric
Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
equatorial Pacific, and a cold SST anomaly is observed in
3
Macao Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau, Macao, China. the western and eastern Pacific. It has been proven that the
El Niño Modoki is totally different from the conventional
Copyright 2010 by the American Geophysical Union. El Niño in both spatial pattern [Ashok et al., 2007; Kao and
0148‐0227/10/2010JD014761

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D24122 FENG ET AL.: DIFFERENT IMPACTS OF TWO OCEAN WARMINGS
Yu, 2009; Trenberth and Smith, 2009] and formation
mechanism [Kao and Yu, 2009]. Moreover, it has also been
noticed that the influence of the El Niño Modoki on global
climate is different from that of the conventional El Niño
[Ashok et al., 2009; Kim et al., 2009; Taschetto et al., 2009;
Weng et al., 2009]. Weng et al. [2009] gave a general
comparison of the global climatic influences between the
two kinds of tropical Pacific Ocean warming events in
boreal winter. Chen and Tam [2010] also suggested that the
tropical cyclone frequency during El Niño Modoki and
during conventional El Niño events varies over different
regions of the western North Pacific. Given the importance
of the wintertime Southeast Asian rainfall, it is therefore
necessary to investigate whether it exhibits different responses
to these two types of tropical Pacific Ocean warming events
and to make clear the related mechanisms. These issues are
investigated here.
[5] The data set and methods as well as the numerical
model used in this study are described in section 2. Section 3
then reports the different wintertime rainfall anomalies in
Southeast Asia associated with the conventional El Niño and
El Niño Modoki, respectively. In section 4, we elucidate the
related mechanisms through observational analysis and a
simple baroclinic model. Finally, a summary is given in
section 5.
2. Data, Methods, and Model Introduction
[6] The monthly mean atmospheric data used in this study
are the reanalysis data set from the National Centers for
Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR), spanning the period 1948
to 2008 [Kalnay et al., 1996]. This data set has a 2.5° × 2.5°
horizontal resolution and extends from 1000 to 10 hPa, with
17 vertical pressure levels. The SST used here is the
monthly mean Hadley Centre Global Sea Ice and Sea Sur-
face Temperature (HadISST) data set. It is a unique com-
bination of monthly globally complete fields of SST and sea
ice concentrations on a 1° latitude‐longitude grid from 1870
to the present [Rayner et al., 2003]. The rainfall data set
includes the monthly global land precipitation data set called
Precipitation Reconstruction Over Land (PREC‐L), which
was produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center (CPC)
[Chen et al., 2002]. This data set was constructed on a
2.5° × 2.5° grid using the optimal interpolation technique
applied to gauge observations at more than 17,000 stations
collected in the Global Historical Climatology Network and
the Climate Anomaly Monitoring System data sets [Chen
et al., 2002]. The analysis has been updated for an
extended period, longer than 50 years, from 1948 to the
present at the NOAA CPC. To illustrate rainfall over oceans
we also use a second rainfall data set, from the Global
Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), covering the
period from 1979 to the present on a 2.5° latitude‐longitude
grid [Adler et al., 2003].
[7] Because El Niño Modoki was rarely observed before
the 1980s, the time period considered in this study is from
1980 to 2008, so that the numbers of El Niño and El Niño
Modoki cases are comparable. Moreover, the availability
and quality of data sets are better after 1980. Seasonal means
are considered throughout this paper, and they are con-
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D24122
structed from the monthly means by averaging the data
for December–January–February (DJF), which results in
29 winters, from 1980 to 2008. Here the winter of 1980
refers to the 1979–1980 winter.
[8] In this study the wintertime Niño3 index and the
El Niño Modoki index (EMI) are used to describe the
conventional El Niño and El Niño Modoki, respectively; the
latter follows the method proposed by Ashok et al. [2007].
The definitions of the two indexes are as follows:
Ni~
no3 ¼ ½SSTAEP ;
where [SSTA]EP is the SST anomalies averaged over the
tropical eastern Pacific (150°W to 90°W, 5°S to 5°N), and
EMI ¼ ½SSTAA  0:5½SSTAB  0:5½SSTAC ;
where [SST]A, [SST]B, and [SST]C stand for SST anomalies
averaged over regions A (165°E to 140°W, 10°S to 10°N),
B (110°W to 70°W, 15°S to 5°N), and C (125°E to 145°E,
10°S to 20°N), respectively. Figures 1a and 1b present the
normalized Niño3 index and EMI for 29 winters, respec-
tively. The two indexes can successfully capture the distinc-
tion of the zonal SST anomaly gradient features (Figures 1c
and 1d). Partial correlation and regression analyses are
employed throughout this study to exclude the possible
influence of one event from that of another. When we test
the significance of the results with the two‐tailed Student’s
t test, the degrees of freedom are set to 26. This is the total
sample size minus 3, as proposed by Ashok et al. [2007],
because rainfall anomalies have little persistence from one
year to the next [Ashok et al., 2007].
[9] The dry baroclinic model used in this study is based
on the dynamic core of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
Laboratory, AGCM [Held and Suarez, 1994; Wang et al.,
2003]. It consists of primitive equations linearized by a
realistic three‐dimensional basic state but retains full non-
linearity in the second‐order perturbation terms of the pre-
diction equations. The model has a horizontal resolution of
T42 (corresponding to roughly 2.8° × 2.8° in latitude and
longitude), and in the vertical there are five uneven s levels.
It uses a form of Laplacian raised to the fourth power in the
horizontal diffusion, Newtonian damping, and Rayleigh
friction. A basic circulation state and an external forcing
should be prescribed to run the model. In this study the basic
state is set as the wintertime (DJF) long‐term mean for the
period from 1980 to 2008 calculated from the NCEP‐NCAR
reanalysis data set. In the vertical direction the data are
linearly interpolated from the original standard pressure
levels to the model s levels. The observed diabatic heating
patterns associated with El Niño and El Niño Modoki are
prescribed as the external forcing for the model.
3. Rainfall Anomalies Associated With ENSO
and ENSO Modoki
[10] To elucidate the importance of considering the dif-
ferent impacts of the two types of Pacific Ocean warming,
we first give a simple comparison of wintertime Southeast
Asian rainfall anomalies between the two cases. Three
strong conventional El Niño events (1982–1983, 1991–1992
and 1997–1998) and four strong El Niño Modoki events
D24122 FENG ET AL.: DIFFERENT IMPACTS OF TWO OCEAN WARMINGS D24122

Figure 1. The normalized winter mean (December–January–February; DJF) (a) Niño3 index and
(b) El Niño Modoki index (EMI) for the period 1979–1980–2007–2008. Partial regressions of winter
mean (DJF) sea surface temperature (SST) with (c) the Niño3 index and (d) the EMI. The contour interval
is 0.2°C in Figures 1c and 1d. Zero contours are omitted. Shading in Figures 1c and 1d denotes the 95%
confidence level from a two‐tailed Student’s t test.

(1979–1980, 1990–1991, 1994–1995 and 2004–2005) are
selected according to the criteria that the normalized winter
mean (DJF) Niño3 index is >1.0, and the EMI is >0.9.
Figure 2 shows the composite winter rainfall anomalies in
all seven El Niño winters, three conventional El Niño and
four El Niño Modoki winters, and the difference between
the latter two. Figure 2 reveals that moderate negative
rainfall anomalies are observed over Southeast Asia if we
mix all El Niño cases together (Figure 2a). However, the
negative anomalies are about twice as strong in conventional
El Niño winters (Figure 2b) and much weaker in El Niño
Modoki winters (Figure 2c). In addition, a band of positive
rainfall anomalies is observed over the subtropics between
20°N and 30°N in conventional El Niño winters (Figure 2b)
but not in El Niño Modoki winters (Figure 2c), suggesting
different rainfall patterns between the two cases (Figure 2d).
[11] Figure 3 presents the partial regression‐correlation
map between the Niño3 index‐EMI and the land precipita-
tion in boreal winter based on the PREC‐L data set. The
results also display remarkable differences in the land pre-
cipitation anomalies between the two types of tropical
Pacific Ocean warming events. In the case of the conven-
tional El Niño significant negative rainfall anomalies are
observed in the Philippines, Borneo, Celebes, and Sulawesi
(Figure 3a). Positive rainfall anomalies appear in the vicinity
of Sumatra and the western part of Borneo, which is out of
phase with its surrounding regions owing to the effect of
high topography [Chang et al., 2004]. In addition, positive
rainfall anomalies are observed in south China, which is
consistent with Figure 2b and previous results [e.g., Zhang
et al., 1996; Chen et al., 2005]. In contrast, for the El Niño
Modoki cases, positive rainfall anomalies are rarely observed
over the Maritime Continent. Significant negative rainfall
anomalies are located in south China, the southern Indo‐
China Peninsula, the Malay Peninsula, and the Philippines
(Figure 3b). In addition to the differences in the spatial pat-
tern, the negative signals in Figure 3b are much weaker than
those in Figure 3a, suggesting a relatively weaker influence
of El Niño Modoki on Southeast Asian rainfall compared
with the conventional El Niño.
[12] Because the PREC‐L data set contains only land pre-
cipitation, we further confirmed the previous results using the
GPCP data set, which consists of the precipitation on both
the land and the ocean. The results shown in Figure 4 are
almost identical to those in Figure 3 but provide more pattern
information for better spatial continuity. During conven-
tional El Niño winters, a belt of positive rainfall anomaly
stretches from south China to the east of Japan, while
negative rainfall anomalies cover the southern South China
Sea and most of the tropical western Pacific (Figure 4a). In
El Niño Modoki cases, however, significant negative rain-
fall anomalies are mainly located in the region around the
Philippines (Figure 4b). Weak negative rainfall anomalies
are also observed in south China and the south of Japan.
Therefore, the impacts of the conventional ENSO and
ENSO Modoki on Southeast Asian rainfall are significantly
different in boreal winter.
4. Possible Mechanism
4.1. Results From Observations
[13] The responses of Southeast Asian rainfall to ENSO
are usually attributed to the anomalous Walker circulation
and the associated anomalous anticyclone‐cyclone around
the Philippines [Wang et al., 2000; Chang et al., 2004], so
the circulation anomalies were examined to understand the

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Figure 2. Composite winter mean (DJF) rainfall anomalies during (a) all El Niño events, (b) conventional
El Niño events, and (c) El Niño Modoki events based on the Global Precipitation Climatology Project
(GPCP) data sets. (d) The difference between Figure 2b and Figure 2c. The contour interval is 1 mm d−1.

different impacts of the two types of ENSO events. Figure 5
shows the partial regressions of the 850 hPa divergent winds
and velocity potential with the Niño3 index and the EMI,
which reflects the anomalous Walker circulation and related
large‐scale divergent motions. In conventional El Niño epi-
sodes the anomalous Walker circulation features a dipolar
pattern, with descent (ascent) over the tropical western
(eastern) Pacific (Figure 5a). The significant descending
center is located around the eastern Maritime Continent. In
El Niño Modoki episodes, in contrast, the anomalous Walker
circulation exhibits a tripolar pattern [Ashok et al., 2007],
with ascent over the tropical central Pacific and descent over
the tropical western and eastern Pacific (Figure 5b),
respectively. The descending center over the western Pacific
is located around the South China Sea, and the strength of
this descent is only half that of its counterpart in the con-
ventional El Niño case. This result suggests that both the
location and the strength of the Walker Circulation are
different during the two types of ENSO.
[14] Figure 6 further depicts the associated outgoing
longwave radiation (OLR) anomalies with the two types of
ENSO events to elucidate the convection activity over the

Figure 3. Partial regressions of winter mean (DJF) rainfall with (a) the Niño3 index and (b) the EMI based
on the Precipitation Reconstruction Over Land (PREC‐L) data set. The contour interval is 0.5 mm d−1.
Zero contours are omitted. Shading denotes the 95% confidence level from a two‐tailed Student’s t test.

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D24122 FENG ET AL.: DIFFERENT IMPACTS OF TWO OCEAN WARMINGS D24122

Figure 4. Same as Figure 3 but based on the GPCP precipitation data.

tropical Pacific. It is clear that, for the conventional El Niño
episodes, the convections are enhanced over the central and
eastern tropical Pacific and suppressed over the regions
around the Maritime Continent (Figure 6a). A thin enhanced
convection belt is also observed from south China to the east
of Japan. For the El Niño Modoki episodes, enhanced
convective activities appear over the tropical central Pacific,
with suppressed convective activities in the vicinity of the
Philippines and the eastern Pacific (Figure 6b). Compara-
tively, the convection near the Philippines is much weaker,
with a small domain in the El Niño Modoki cases. Generally,
the distributions of convection anomalies in Figure 6 are
consistent with the anomalous rainfall shown in Figure 4. In
addition, the convection over the northwestern Indian Ocean
(0° to 20°N, 40°E to 60°E) is enhanced for conventional
El Niño cases and suppressed for El Niño Modoki cases,

Figure 5. Partial regressions of winter mean (DJF) 850 hPa divergent winds (vector; m s−1) and velocity
potential (contour) with (a) the Niño3 index and (b) the EMI. The contour interval is 2 × 105 m2 s−1. Zero
contours are omitted. Shading indicates the 95% confidence level from a two‐tailed Student’s t test.

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D24122 FENG ET AL.: DIFFERENT IMPACTS OF TWO OCEAN WARMINGS D24122

Figure 6. Same as Figure 3, but for the OLR. The contour interval is 3 Wm−2. Zero contours are
omitted. The shading denotes a 95% confidence level.

respectively. Watanabe and Jin [2002] proposed that during
El Niño, the convective cooling over the Maritime Conti-
nent is strongly enhanced by the Indian Ocean ascent, by
modification of the Walker circulations. Our results confirm
their findings but suggest that their mechanism is not valid
for the El Niño Modoki case. The results also imply that the
convection and related diabatic heating‐cooling around the
Maritime Continent may contribute to the different rainfall
anomalies in Southeast Asia associated with the two types of
ENSO.
[15] Figure 7 shows the partial regressions of 850 hPa
winds and partial correlations of vertical p velocity with the
Niño3 index and the EMI. During conventional El Niño
episodes the anticyclone is located around the southern
Philippines and central and eastern Indonesia (Figure 7a).
The anomalous vertical p velocity is generally positive in
this region, which suggests descending motion and favors
less rainfall. To the northwest of the anticyclone, sufficient
water vapor can be transported by the anomalous south-
westerlies to the areas stretching from northern Southeast

Figure 7. Partial regressions of winter mean (DJF) 850 hPa wind (vector, ms−1) and partial correlations
of 500 hPa vertical p‐velocity anomalies (shading) with (a) the Niño3 and (b) the EMI. The partial
correlation coefficients 0.37 (−0.37) indicate a 95% confidence level.

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D24122 FENG ET AL.: DIFFERENT IMPACTS OF TWO OCEAN WARMINGS D24122

Figure 8. Simulated 850 hPa wind (vector, ms−1) response to the prescribed heating anomaly in (a) the
conventional El Niño and (b) El Niño Modoki. The shading represents a heating anomaly at s = 0.5 with a
0.3 K d−1 interval.

Asia to the south of Japan. The negative vertical p velocity
suggests ascending motion and favors more rainfall in this
region. During El Niño Modoki episodes, in contrast, the
anticyclone and related descending center shift northward to
about 20°N (Figure 7b). The strength of the anticyclone is
relatively weak compared with that in the conventional
El Niño case. Consequently, the negative rainfall anomaly
center shifts northward, inducing less precipitation over
south China, the Philippines, the Indo‐China peninsula, and
the surrounding areas. Because the subtropical western
North Pacific anticyclone around the Philippines is the
direct factor through which El Niño influences Southeast
Asian rainfall [Wang et al., 2000], the differences in both
the strength and the location of this anticyclone can explain
well the distinct rainfall responses to these two types of
ENSO.
4.2. Results From a Simple Baroclinic Model
[16] To further illustrate the relationship between the
atmospheric circulation anomalies and the heating associ-
ated with the two types of ENSO, two experiments are
conducted to examine the atmospheric responses to different
heating sources with a simple dry baroclinic model. The
prescribed heating has a vertical profile in the model. It
peaks at 500 hPa (s = 0.5), with a magnitude of 0.6 K d−1,
and decreases toward upper and low levels. The column
average of this profile is about 0.25 K d−1, equivalent to the
latent heating associated with precipitation of 1 mm d−1. In
the horizontal direction the heating distribution is estimated
by the observed OLR anomalies (Figure 6). To focus on the
heating field that is associated only with ENSO, the OLR
anomaly is set to 0 beyond the region (30°S to 30°N, 80°E
to 90°W). Furthermore, a triangle truncation at 15 wave
numbers (T15) is applied to remove small‐scale features and
highlight large‐scale heating patterns. The processed OLR
anomaly is then normalized by −4.5 W m−2, whose absolute
value is half the maximum OLR (∼9 W m−2) over the
western North Pacific during El Niño Modoki; this normali-
zation results in a nondimensional horizontal distribution.
Consequently, the obtained spatial distribution and intensity
of heating are basically, in agreement with latent heating
released by the observed anomalous precipitation (Figures 3
and 4). The prescribed heating patterns at s = 0.5 are
shown as shaded areas for each experiment in Figures 8 and 9.
The heating anomaly is set to be steady with time in the two
experiments. A steady state is reached after about 10 days of
integration. Here we show the results on day 30.
[17] Figure 8 presents the 850 hPa wind response to the
prescribed heating in the conventional El Niño and El Niño
Modoki experiments, respectively. The low‐level responses
indicate the Philippine anticyclone signals in the two experi-
ments. For the conventional El Niño experiment there is a
large‐scale anticyclone over the Philippines forced by the
dipolar heating pattern (Figure 8a). In contrast, the anticy-
clone in the El Niño Modoki experiment (Figure 8b) is
confined to a smaller domain and shifts northward, induced
by the tripolar heating pattern, which is in good agreement
with the observed results (Figure 7). These results suggest
that the atmospheric response to the diabatic heating asso-
ciated with two types of ENSO can explain well the
observed differences in circulation and precipitation. Fur-
thermore, a second experiment was conducted to examine

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Figure 9. Same as Figure 8, but with heating only confined to the western North Pacific.
the key diabatic heating source responsible for the formation
of the anticyclone. In the experiment we only retain the
diabatic cooling over the Maritime Continent, as shown in
Figure 9. The simulated results are almost identical to those
in the first experiment shown in Figure 8. Thus, the model
results suggest that the distinction of the anticyclone results
from the difference in the anomalous diabatic heating
associated with the two types of Pacific Ocean warming. In
addition, the anticyclone around the Philippines is mainly a
direct atmospheric response to the diabatic cooling over the
Maritime Continent, which is consistent with previous
studies [e.g., Wang et al., 2000; Watanabe and Jin, 2002].
5. Summary
[18] This paper has investigated the different relationships
of Southeast Asian rainfall with the conventional El Niño
and El Niño Modoki events in boreal winter. The linear
partial correlation‐regression method is used to isolate the
influence from each kind of ENSO. On the basis of the
PREC‐L and GPCP precipitation data sets, it is revealed that
conventional El Niño events generally favor below‐normal
rainfall across the Philippines, Borneo, Celebes, and Sulawesi
and above‐normal rainfall over south China. In contrast, for
El Niño Modoki events, negative rainfall anomalies are
generally observed in south China, the Indo‐China penin-
sula, the Malay peninsula, and the Philippines. Compared
with conventional El Niño events, the negative rainfall
anomalies over Southeast Asia are relatively weaker and
located more northward during El Niño Modoki events.
[19] The different Southeast Asian rainfall anomalies
related to the conventional ENSO and ENSO Modoki can be
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D24122
attributed to the difference in the anomalous Walker circu-
lation and the low‐level anticyclone near the Philippines. In
the case of the conventional El Niño the anomalous Walker
circulation depicts a dipolar pattern, with ascending flow
over the eastern Pacific and descending flow over the
Maritime Continent. However, the anomalous Walker cir-
culation associated with El Niño Modoki shows a tripolar
pattern, with a rising branch in the central Pacific and
sinking branches in the eastern Pacific and the area around
the Philippines. The OLR anomalies suggest that the
suppressed convection over the tropical western Pacific in
El Niño Modoki winters is weaker and occupies a smaller
domain compared to that in conventional El Niño winters.
Hence, the diabatic heating‐cooling associated with the two
types of Pacific Ocean warming may induce different
atmospheric circulation anomalies over the western Pacific.
For El Niño episodes an anomalous low‐level anticyclone
centered near the Philippines controls a large domain
including the Philippines, Borneo, Celebes, and Sulawesi
where the sinking motion favors less rainfall. The south-
westerlies to the northwest of this anticyclone may supply
plentiful water vapor to south China, inducing wet condi-
tions there. However, for El Niño Modoki episodes the
anomalous anticyclone is weaker and moves northward.
Therefore, the negative rainfall anomalies are weaker and
shift more northward, to south China, the southern Indo‐
China peninsula, the Malay peninsula, and the Philippines.
[20] On the basis of a simple baroclinic model, two
numerical experiments were conducted to validate the
atmospheric response to the anomalous heating forcing
associated with the two types of ENSO. In the first exper-
iment the ENSO‐related diabatic forcing in the whole
D24122 FENG ET AL.: DIFFERENT IMPACTS OF TWO OCEAN WARMINGS
tropical Pacific was used. The simulated atmospheric cir-
culation anomalies are largely consistent with the observa-
tions, suggesting that the anomalous low‐level anticyclone
over the tropical western Pacific is mainly a direct response
to the anomalous heating related to ENSO. Furthermore, in
the second experiment, with only the convective cooling
around the Philippines retained, almost‐identical low‐level
anticyclones can be forced over the tropical western Pacific.
Therefore, the differences between the anticyclones are
suggested to result from the difference in the diabatic
heating associated with the two types of Pacific Ocean
warming. The diabatic cooling over the Maritime Continent
plays the dominant role in this process.
[21] Acknowledgments. We are grateful to two anonymous referees
and Steve Ghan for their helpful suggestions. This work was supported by
the 973 Program of China (grants 2010CB428603) and the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (grants 40775035, 40905026, and 40730952).
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Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PO Box
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S. K. Fong and K. C. Leong, Macao Meteorological and Geophysical
Bureau, Rampa do Observatório Taipa Grande, Caixa, Postal 93, Macau,
China.