ENSO modulation of MJO teleconnections to the north Atlantic & Europe

Lee, R. W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1946-5559, Woolnough, S. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0500-8514, Charlton-Perez, A. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8179-6220 and Vitart, F. (2019) ENSO modulation of MJO teleconnections to the north Atlantic & Europe. Geophysical Research Letters, 46 (22). pp. 13535-13545. ISSN 0094-8276 doi: 10.1029/2019GL084683

Abstract/Summary

The teleconnection from the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) provides a source of subseasonal variability and predictability to the North Atlantic-European (NAE) region. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) modulates the seasonal mean state, through which the MJO and its teleconnection pattern propagates; however, its impact on this teleconnection to the NAE region has not been investigated. Here we find a robust dependence of the teleconnections from the MJO to NAE weather regimes on the phase of ENSO. We show that the MJO to NAO+ regime tropospheric teleconnection is strongly enhanced during El Niño years, via enhanced Rossby wave activity, and suppressed during La Niña. Conversely the MJO to NAO− regime stratospheric teleconnection is enhanced during La Niña years, and suppressed during El Niño. This dependence on the background state has strong implications for subseasonal predictability, including interannual variations in subseasonal predictive skill.