EasternLI

November 14, 2021

Just a nerdy little observation here. The QBO is every bit a temperature oscillation as much as a wind one. Research has shown that this is an important factor in the tropics. Specifically for tropical convection. The tropopause layer ~100mb in the tropics sees warmer temperatures in WQBO and cooler temperatures during EQBO. Generally. So cooler temperatures there can increase instability via increasing lapse rates due to warm ocean temperatures. Increasing convection. This is pretty cool. Check out the temperatures at 100mb this month. Focus on the area around Australia.

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Anomalous convection lines up really well with the cooler temperatures during the same time period.

It'll be interesting to see how things evolve.

November 7, 2021

From what I've read, the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Warm Pool are two areas under increased scrutiny in recent years, and continues to be. Mostly because of projected warming in that part of the world. Most of the research done previously did not look into possible global ramifications only local ones. The following recent paper, for example, attributes the +NAO of winter 19-20 to the very strong IOD of that fall.

https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/asl.1005

September 25, 2021

The QBO has been a focal point of investigation in recent years. This upcoming season, La Nina + EQBO, is pretty interesting wrt the MJO. Here's a couple relevant points from the following article.

Combined effect of the QBO and ENSO on the MJO:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16742834.2019.1588064

For each La Niña/QBOE year (Figure 3(c)), there are 1.7 MJO events, which is much larger than that in an El Niño year and La Niña/QBOW year. The last phase has only 0.6 MJO events (Figure 3(d)). During a La Niña/QBOE year, the MJO can propagate to the western Pacific without being suppressed over the Maritime Continent. During a La Niña/QBOW year, the existing MJO is observed to be enhanced over the Indian Ocean, while it is barely able to pass the Maritime Continent (Figure 3(d)).