Clim Dyn (2015) 44:807825

DOI 10.1007/s00382-014-2227-0

State ofthe tropical Pacific Ocean andits enhanced impact

onprecipitation overEast Asia duringmarine isotopic stage 13
M.P.Karami N.Herold A.Berger
Q.Z.Yin H.Muri

Received: 28 August 2013 / Accepted: 19 June 2014 / Published online: 16 July 2014
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Abstract Multiple terrestrial records suggest that marine

isotopic stage 13 (MIS-13), an interglacial period approximately 0.5 million years ago, had the strongest East Asian
summer monsoon (EASM) of the last one million years.
This is unexpected given that, compared to other interglacials, MIS-13 was globally cooler with a lower CO2 concentration. We use two coupled atmosphereocean general
circulation models, the Hadley Centre Coupled Model,
version 3 (HadCM3) and Community Climate System
Model, version 3.0 (CCSM3), to simulate the climate of
MIS-13 forced with different insolation and greenhouse
gas concentrations relative to the pre-industrial (PrI) situation. Both models confirm a stronger EASM during MIS13 compared to PrI. Here we specially focus on analyzing
the impact of the tropical Pacific Ocean on the EASM.
Our simulations suggest that the mean climatic state in the
tropical Pacific during MIS-13 was La Nia-like and that

M.P.Karami(*) N.Herold A.Berger Q.Z.Yin H.Muri

Georges Lematre Centre forEarth andClimate Research
(TECLIM), Earth andLife Institute (ELI), Universit
Catholique de Louvain, Place Louise Pasteur 3, Box L4.03.08,
1348LouvainLaNeuve, Belgium
e-mail: pashakarami@gmail.com
Present Address:
M.P.Karami
Geotop, Universit du Qubec Montral (UQAM),
Montreal, Canada
N.Herold
Institute forthe Study ofEarth, Oceans andSpace,
University ofNew Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA
H.Muri
Department ofGeosciences, Meteorology andOceanography
Section, University ofOslo, Blindern, Postboks 1022,
0315Oslo, Norway

associated teleconnections with the extra-tropics favored

increased precipitation over the EASM. As compared to
PrI, it is found that the summer (JuneJulyAugust) sea
surface temperature (SST) is warmer in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean and colder to the west. In concert with
previous studies, we show that colder summer SSTs in the
central tropical Pacific during MIS-13 promotes an upperlevel teleconnection between the tropical Pacific Ocean and
EASM. It also contributes to the strengthening of the northern Pacific subtropical high and, therefore, the transport of
more moisture into the EASM. We suggest that the reduced
eastwest SST difference in the tropical Pacific in summer
helps to maintain the teleconnection between the tropical
Pacific and EASM. The correlation between tropical Pacific
SSTs and the EASM was higher in our MIS-13 simulations, further supporting the enhancement of their relationship. It is found that the pure impact of El Nio Southern
Oscillation on EASM precipitation increases by up to 30%
in MIS-13 for HadCM3 while it is minor for CCSM3. Better constraining the spatio-temporal variability of tropical
Pacific SST during the interglacials may thus help explain
the anomalously strong EASM during MIS-13 which has
been observed from geological records.
Keywords Paleoclimate modeling MIS-13 ENSO
Teleconnection East Asian summer monsoon

1Introduction
Given the Earths current interglacial state, past interglacial periods provide good candidates for studying potential
climate change. Quaternary interglacials exhibited changes
in atmospheric and oceanic circulations and are subject to
high spatio-temporal resolution data archives, making them

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ideal candidates for investigating the sensitivity of climate

to forcings.
The interglacial stage of ~0.5 million years ago, identified as marine isotopic stage 13 (MIS-13), was characterized by a relatively low CO2 concentration (Luthi etal.
2008), cool Antarctic temperatures (Jouzel etal. 2007) and
high benthic 18O values (e.g., Lisiecki and Raymo 2005)
related to higher global ice volume and/or colder deepocean temperatures. However, it featured the strongest East
Asian summer monsoon (EASM) of the last one million
years, an insight derived mainly from loess records from
northern China (e.g. Kukla etal. 1990; Guo etal. 1998)
and paleosols from southern China (Yin and Guo 2006).
The strongest EASM in MIS-13 was proposed as a paradox
(Yin and Guo 2008) given that CO2 and CH4 concentrations were relatively low during MIS-13 and its insolation
is not abnormal as compared to other interglacials. Strong
African and Indian monsoons during MIS-13 were also
suggested based on marine sediments from the equatorial
Indian Ocean (Bassinot etal. 1994) and the Mediterranean
Sea (Rossignol-Strick etal. 1998).
This study investigates the role of the tropical Pacific
Ocean in enhancing the EASM during MIS-13. In previous
model studies of MIS-13, the impacts of insolation, greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations and ice sheets were investigated (Yin etal. 2008, 2009; Sundaram etal. 2012; Muri
etal. 2012, 2013). The first model simulations of MIS-13
climate were performed by Yin etal. (2008, 2009) using
an Earth system model of intermediate complexity, LOVECLIM. They found that strong summer insolation in the
Northern Hemisphere (NH) is chiefly responsible for the
more intense EASM of MIS-13 compared to pre-industrial
(PrI). However, model comparison between MIS-13 and all
the other interglacials (in particular MIS-5e) showed that
insolation alone did not make the MIS-13 EASM exceptionally strong (Yin and Berger 2012). Therefore, the role
of other factors was also needed to be investigated. The
presence of a Eurasian ice sheet further increased (by 5%)
the precipitation in the EASM region through a topographically-induced atmospheric wave train (Yin etal. 2008,
2009). Whether there were in fact additional ice sheets
in the NH during MIS-13 is still unclear from geological
evidence (Guo etal. 2009). The results of Yin etal. (2008,
2009) have since been confirmed by general circulation
models (Sundaram etal. 2012; Muri etal. 2012, 2013).
Based on hydrographic reconstructions from the South
China Sea, Yu and Chen (2011) conjectured the importance
of the tropical dynamics and the eastwest sea surface temperature (SST) gradient of the Equatorial Pacific in MIS-13
climate. In the modern climate, the tropical Pacific Ocean
is an important component of climate variability. The El
Nio-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant source
of interannual variability in the tropical Pacific Ocean and

13

M. P. Karami etal.

strongly influences global precipitation (Ropelewski and

Halpert 1987) and the EASM (e.g., Chang etal. 2000)
through changing atmospheric circulation and teleconnections (e.g., Hoskins and Karoly 1981). El Nio (La Nia),
which is the positive (negative) phase of ENSO, is driven
by significantly warm (cold) SST in the equatorial eastern
Pacific Ocean in winter. Mean summer precipitation over
China usually increases after onset of the El Nio (Shen
and Lau 1995; Chang etal. 2000). Moreover, the mean
climatic state of the tropical Pacific varies on interdecadal
to millennial time scales, which modifies the atmospheric
teleconnections accompanying ENSO events (Mller and
Roeckner 2008) and influences EASM precipitation. For
instance, changes in the ENSO-EASM relation on interdecadal time scales (e.g., Wu and Wang 2002; Lee etal. 2008),
was linked to the interdecadal changes in the background
state of the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans (Chang etal.
2000). At precessional frequencies, El Nio- or La Nialike configurations are found in the mean-state of the tropical Pacific depending on the time of perihelion (Clement
etal. 1999).
The atmospheric-oceanic interaction in the tropical
Pacific which was very likely to contribute to a stronger
EASM in MIS-13 has not been explored. We use two fully
coupled general circulation models, Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3 (HadCM3) and Community Climate System Model, version 3.0 (CCSM3), to explore the
ocean and atmosphere interactions in the tropical Pacific
and their teleconnection with the EASM during MIS-13.
This work goes beyond previous studies of MIS-13 (e.g.,
Muri etal. 2013) by showing that the changes in the mean
state as well as in the interannual variability of the tropical Pacific increased the ENSOEASM relationship and
contributed to the higher EASM precipitation during this
period. In addition to unraveling the causes for the climate
of MIS-13, this study also contributes to our understanding of the relationship between the tropical Pacific Ocean
and East Asian monsoon under different CO2 concentration and insolation.
This paper is organized as follows: Sect. 2 briefly
describes the models and boundary conditions. In Sect. 3,
the difference in the mean climate between MIS-13 and
PrI, and the subsequent difference in the monsoons are
investigated. This will be followed by our proposed mechanism concerning the enhanced relationship between the
tropical Pacific and EASM in MIS-13. In Sect. 4, we will
analyze the interannual variability around the mean state of
each model experiment and will quantify the contribution
of ENSO events to the enhancement of the EASM. Lastly,
Sect. 5 draws conclusions concerning the role of tropical
Pacific Ocean in enhancement of the EASM and the often
disregarded relationship between mean climate and interannual variability.

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State of the tropical Pacific Ocean

Table1Astronomical parameters (Berger 1978) and greenhouse gas concentrations used for simulating the PrI and MIS-13 climate in HadCM3
and in CCSM3
Experiment

Obliquity ()

Eccentricity

Longitude of perihelion ()

CH4 (ppb)

N2O (ppb)

CO2 (ppm)

PrI
HadCM3 MIS-13

23.446
23.377

0.016724
0.034046

102.04
274.05

760
510

270
280

280
240

CCSM3 MIS-13

23.377

0.034046

274.05

508

258

247

2Model descriptions
Full descriptions of each models configuration is presented
in Muri etal. (2012) for HadCM3 and Herold etal. (2012)
for CCSM3. Here, we summarize the main information
of the models and the boundary conditions. The HadCM3
is a fully coupled atmosphereocean general circulation
model (AOGCM). Its atmospheric component has 19 vertical levels and horizontal resolution of 3.752.5 (longitudelatitude). The oceanic component has 20 vertical
layers with 1.251.25 horizontal resolution. Documentation of the model are explained in e.g. Pope etal. (2000)
and Gordon etal. (2000). HadCM3 produces ENSO with
a period in 34year band (Collins etal. 2001), and has a
realistic representation of the monsoons (Turner and Slingo
2009). The CCSM3 (Collins etal. 2006) is an AOGCM
of a similar generation to HadCM3, both of which were
a part of the Fourth Assessment Report by the IPCC. The
atmospheric component of the CCSM3 represents 26
vertical levels with a horizontal T31 spectral resolution
(~3.753.75). The ocean component represents 25 vertical levels with a nominal ~31 horizontal resolution.
The version of the CCSM3 used in this study simulates
ENSO variability with as much skill as higher resolution
versions of the model (Yeager etal. 2006), though exhibits
too high a frequency compared to observations (Deser etal.
2006).
Two simulations were performed for each model; a PrI
and a MIS-13 simulation. Only the climate response to
insolation and GHGs is analyzed while ice sheets are kept
at their present-day states. The largest difference between
the PrI and MIS-13 simulations are their astronomical configurations (Table1). MIS-13 has a larger eccentricity and
its NH summer occurred at perihelion, which leads to a
higher summer insolation in the NH compared to our PrI
simulations [the summer solstice daily insolation at 65N is
50Wm2 (10%) larger during MIS-13 than PrI]. This difference in insolation forcing induces significant changes in
the climate system as shown in previous studies (Yin etal.
2008; Muri etal. 2013) as well as in this study.
For HadCM3, the PrI control run is for the year 1850,
and to simulate the MIS-13 climate the astronomical
parameters and GHG concentrations at 506ka BP are used
(Table 1; Muri etal. 2013). Both HadCM3 experiments

have the same insolation and GHG as Yin etal. (2008)

where the justification of the forcing was explained. The
HadCM3 experiments were run for 800years. The PrI
CCSM3 simulation is that of Herold etal. (2012) and the
MIS-13 CCSM3 simulation was set up in an identical
fashion to the interglacial simulations in that study. The
PrI simulation of CCSM3 was run for 1,300years (thus a
total length of 1,300years) and the MIS-13 one was initiated from the PrI simulation at year 500 (of 1,300) and
run for 1,000years. The CCSM3 MIS-13 experiment has
the same astronomical parameters as the HadCM3 one, but
has slightly different GHG concentrations (Table1). This
is because the HadCM3 MIS-13 experiment has followed
the strategy of Yin etal. (2008) where the average of GHG
concentrations over MIS-13 was used, whereas the CCSM3
MIS-13 experiment has followed the strategy of Yin and
Berger (2012) where interglacial climates were simulated
under peak forcings. This slight difference in GHG concentrations between the two models is equivalent to ~0.13W/
m2 radiative forcing (Myhre etal. 1998) and thus would not
likely change our conclusions.
Given that our focus is on the potential role of the tropical Pacific in enhancing EASM, a comprehensive intermodel comparison is not done. However, recent studies
provide comprehensive overviews of various models skill
in reproducing interglacial climate (e.g., Lunt etal. 2013).
The HadCM3 and CCSM3 underestimate high latitude
warmth and thus also misrepresent the equator to pole temperature gradient based on Lunt etal. (2013). HadCM3
however does a better job than CCSM3 in reproducing
interglacial temperatures.

3Climatology ofMIS13
3.1Annual/summer atmosphere andocean MIS13
climatologies
In both HadCM3 and CCSM3, the annually-averaged
global SST of MIS-13 is generally found to be lower
than PrI. This cooling is mainly due to its lower CO2
concentration (Yin and Berger 2012). The strongest
cooling particularly occurs in the tropical Pacific and the
North Atlantic Ocean for HadCM3, and in the western

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810

North Pacific and North Atlantic Ocean for CCSM3

(Fig. 1). In the tropical Pacific, both models show cooling, though this is stronger in HadCM3. The eastern
tropical Pacific Ocean (250280E) shows a smaller
decrease in temperature relative to the central and western tropical Pacific. One possible explanation for this
is the westward shift of the Pacific cold tongue (where
the SST is minimum along the tropical Pacific) which
is further discussed in Sect. 3.2. Also, the presence of
strong ocean dynamics (e.g., upwelling) in the eastern
tropical Pacific Ocean has been known to cause different
responses to climate change relative to the western tropical Pacific (Clement etal. 1996).
Figure2 shows the modeled precipitation for NH summer (JuneJulyAugust; JJA) as our particular interest is
the summer monsoon. The PrI values of the two models
(Fig. 2a, b) are qualitatively in agreement although there
are differences in the tropics and East Asia. For the difference in precipitation between MIS-13 and PrI, we focus
on eastern China where most EASM proxy data were
collected, i.e., approximately 2040N and 100120E
(e.g., Yin and Guo 2008; their Fig.2). The MIS-13 JJA
precipitation increases in both models in MIS-13 except
for central-eastern China in the CCSM3. The increase in
EASM precipitation is larger in the HadCM3 and covers eastern China in agreement with proxy data. Overall,
HadCM3 seems to perform better than CCSM3 in capturing increased precipitation throughout the EASM region
when compared to the data of Yin and Guo (2008). For
the modern simulations of EASM, it was also found that
the HadCM3 reproduced the EASM well (Lei etal. 2013)
while CCSM3 had deficient rainfall over EASM (Meehl
etal. 2006).
The position and strength of the western Pacific subtropical high is known to play a dominant role in the variability
and distribution of EASM precipitation (Zhou etal. 2008
and references therein). In our MIS-13 simulations, JJA sea
level pressure (SLP) values for both models exhibit westward extension and strengthening of the western Pacific
subtropical high and deepening of Asian low (Fig.3). Such
a change is in favor of increasing the monsoon intensity by
bringing more moisture from the Indian and Pacific Oceans
to East Asia (Fig.3). The total moisture transported to East
Asia in our PrI simulations mainly originates from the
Indian Ocean and South China Sea (Fig.3a, c). In CCSM3
MIS-13, it can be seen that the moisture coming from the
northern Pacific Ocean into EASM is increased compared
to CCSM3 PrI (Fig.3b). In the case of HadCM3 MIS-13,
the additional moisture comes not only from the northern
Pacific Ocean, but also from the Indian Ocean and South
China Sea. More moisture from the Pacific Ocean during MIS-13 suggests an increase in its contribution to the
EASM during MIS-13.

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M. P. Karami etal.

3.2La Niatype mean climate ofthe tropical Pacific

All the fields in this section are presented as annual mean
values averaged over 5S5N.
The cooling of the tropical Pacific SSTs (as shown in
Sect. 3.1) is not uniform along the equator and is largest in
the eastern-central equatorial Pacific Ocean around 240E
(Fig.4a). The Pacific cold tongue has shifted westward in
our MIS-13 simulations by ~10 compared to PrI ones.
The difference in SST (annual mean) between the cold
tongue and the western tropical Pacific shows an increase
in MIS-13 for both models. However, the difference in
SST between the easternmost and western tropical Pacific
Ocean is decreased in MIS-13. This is important to consider when interpreting proxy SST records from the tropical Pacific (cf., Mohtadi etal. 2006).
The magnitude of the zonal wind stress during MIS-13
has decreased in the eastern tropical Pacific (230280E)
compared to PrI, while it has increased to the west (150
230E; Fig.4b).
The mean thermocline depth, where the largest vertical
oceanic temperature gradient occurs, is shown in Fig.4c. The
thermocline along the equator is typically approximated by the
depth of the 20C isotherm (e.g., Merkel etal. 2010), which
was found to be a good approximation for our MIS-13 simulations and thus adopted here. Compared to the PrI, MIS-13
in CCSM3 shows an overall shoaling of the thermocline with
a reduced eastwest slope. In HadCM3, the MIS-13 thermocline is shallower in the east, deeper in the west and, therefore,
has steeper tilt. The enhanced vertical velocity in the eastern
tropical Pacific (not shown) also indicates a stronger upwelling
consistent with the shoaling of the thermocline in both models. When the eastwest tilt of the thermocline is compared
between MIS-13 and PrI, its relation with the corresponding
zonal wind stress is non-linear. Between 230E and 280E,
the shallower thermocline does not follow the weakened zonal
wind stress. This is likely to be related to the stronger meridional wind (Fig.12 in Appendix) in the eastern equatorial
Pacific (mainly south of the equator) which causes stronger
upwelling through Ekman pumping and, therefore, a shallower thermocline. The equatorial Pacific thermocline computed in both PrI and MIS-13, is deeper in HadCM3 than in
CCSM3 although HadCM3 exhibits stronger zonal and meridional winds. The difference in the thermocline of the two models might be an ocean-related process (e.g., Timmermann etal.
2005) and/or due to the difference in the vertical resolution of
the ocean component of the models.
The sea-level pressure differences between our MIS13 and PrI simulations (in both models) show a positive
and negative anomaly in the eastern and western tropical
Pacific, respectively (Fig.13 in Appendix). Regarding
the Walker circulation, the atmospheric vertical velocity
at the equator versus longitude shows the upwelling and

State of the tropical Pacific Ocean

811

Fig.1Annually-averaged sea surface temperature (SST; C). Left

column is CCSM3 and right one is HadCM3. a and b are PrI values, c and d are the difference between MIS-13 and PrI. The colored-

shaded areas in c and d are significant at the 95% confidence level

based on the Students t test and the white-shaded areas are non-significant values

downwelling branches (Fig.4d; note that negative velocity

is upward). HadCM3 MIS-13 shows westward shift (westward extension) of the convection center in the western
tropical Pacific and smaller vertical velocity in the western Pacific (150170E). CCSM3 MIS-13, however, shows
increased convection in the western Pacific (150180E)
and no westward extension of the Walker circulation.
The shoaling of the thermocline in the eastern tropical
Pacific, the presence of the cold SST anomaly in the central tropical Pacific, the westward shift of the cold tongue
and Walker circulation, and stronger zonal wind stress in
the central equatorial Pacific all indicate that MIS-13 was
subject to a La Nia-like mean climatic state, relative to PrI
conditions.

HadCM3 (Fig.5d). This suggests that other factors, next to

the landocean thermal contrast, could have also played a
role in MIS-13 to explain the EASM precipitation evolution in June, July and August. The changes in the tropical
Pacific SST, is seen a good candidate.
The SST difference between MIS-13 and PrI shows a
warming anomaly in the eastern equatorial Pacific and a
cooling one in the central equatorial Pacific during summer
(JJA) which coincides with the increase in EASM precipitation (Fig.5a, b). These SST anomalies affect the atmospheric circulation by modifying the tropical convection.
Summer-time cooling in the central tropical Pacific was
suggested to have a critical role in maintaining the western
Pacific subtropical high and modifying the EASM precipitation (Fan etal. 2013). The SST difference between MIS13 and PrI has larger seasonal variability in the eastern
equatorial Pacific (260280E) than in the western equatorial Pacific (140160E; Fig.5a, b) which also affects the
tropical convection. Such behavior is normally linked to the
higher asymmetry in the distribution of SSTs on the northern and the southern sides of the eastern equatorial Pacific
(Li and Philander 1996; Thuburn and Sutton 2000).
Changes in the eastwest SST gradient in the tropical
Pacific has been suggested to have a larger influence on the
tropical convection than a uniform zonal cooling/warming (Yin and Battisti 2001; Chiang 2009). The eastwest
SST difference in MIS-13 (Fig.5c) is smaller than in PrI

3.3Strengthened relationship betweentropical Pacific SST

andEast Asian monsoon
Higher summer insolation and the subsequent increase of
landocean thermal contrast (i.e., between East Asia and
Western Pacific Ocean) in MIS-13 was found as an important factor for the enhancement of EASM precipitation (Yin
etal. 2008). We find that MIS-13 landocean thermal contrast reaches its maximum in June, and starts to decrease in
July and August (not shown). This is while, EASM precipitation of MIS-13, continues to increase in July and August,
and has its maximum in July for CCSM3 and in August for

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M. P. Karami etal.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

Fig.2Summer (June-JulyAugust) precipitation (mm/day). Left column is CCSM3 and right one is HadCM3. a and b are PrI values, c and d
are the difference between MIS-13 and PrI, e and f are also the difference between MIS-13 and PrI but zoomed into the East-Asian region

from May to October in CCSM3 (the maximum decrease is

reaching 1C), and from June to December in HadCM3
(the maximum decrease is reaching 3C). At around
the same period, the EASM precipitation (averaged over
2040N and 100120E) is found to be higher in MIS-13,
especially in HadCM3 (Fig.5d). Accordingly, less winter
precipitation coincides with the enhanced eastwest SST
difference in MIS-13. Hence, the eastwest tropical Pacific
SST gradient and EASM precipitation are found to be anticorrelated (around 0.8 with 95% significance) in MIS13 which is not the case in PrI. Thus the teleconnection
between the tropical Pacific and EASM was present during MIS-13 though not in PrI. We propose that the reduced
eastwest SST difference and the cooling in the central
tropical Pacific Ocean in MIS-13 are contributing factors
in providing more rainfall over EASM through maintaining
the teleconnection between the tropical Pacific and EASM
as will be discussed in Sect. 3.4.

13

3.4Teleconnection betweentropical Pacific andEast

Asian monsoon
Changes in the tropical Pacific convection affect the atmospheric circulation in the extra-tropical regions through
atmospheric teleconnections (e.g., Seager etal. 2010)
which can vary with the seasonal cycle (Alexander etal.
2002). Atmospheric teleconnections during modern ENSO
(El Nio and La Nia) events are normally attributed to the
Ross by wave train generated due to changes in tropical
Hadley circulation (Trenberth etal. 1998) or tropical diabatic heating (De Weaver and Nigam 2004). These wave
Fig.3Summer (June-JulyAugust) sea-level pressure superim-
posed on the vertically-integrated moisture transport. Left column is
CCSM3 and right one is HadCM3. a and b are PrI values, c and d
are the difference between MIS-13 and PrI. Please note the different
color legends for the isobars in c and d

State of the tropical Pacific Ocean

813

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M. P. Karami etal.

Fig.4Annual mean average

over 5S5N in the tropical
Pacific for a sea surface temperature (C), b zonal wind stress
(N/m2), c depth of thermocline
(m), d vertical wind velocity
at 700 mb (Pa/s) note that the
negative velocity is upward.
CCSM3 experiments are in Red
and the ones of HadCM3 are
in blue

trains which are excited towards higher latitudes modify

the westerlies and are an important component of the teleconnection between the tropics and sub-tropics.
To assess the change in teleconnection between the tropical Pacific and EASM during MIS-13, we analyze the zonal
eddy wind field anomalies (differences between MIS-13
and PrI) at 250 mb. The eddy wind represents the stationary
waves (Mller and Roeckner 2008), and its anomaly shows
for instance changes in the wave amplitude and ENSOrelated wave trains (e.g., De Weaver and Nigam 2004). We
will mainly focus on the summer (JJA) teleconnection as both
of our models show excess precipitation during these months.
The positive summer SST anomaly in the eastern tropical Pacific and the negative anomaly in the western tropical Pacific (Fig.5a, b) slows down the Walker circulation
by causing anomalous ascending in the east and anomalous
descending in the west, respectively (Fig.5 e, f; note that the
negative velocity is upward). It should be noted that the maximum weakening of the Walker circulation in MIS-13 relative
to PrI occurs mainly around the summer season consistent
with the reduced eastwest SST difference. The subsequent
change in the vertical velocity and convection is transferred to
the middle and upper troposphere through a Gill-type effect
(Gill 1980). In the Gill response, two anticyclones (cyclones)
form to the west of a warm (cold) anomaly in the middleupper troposphere, straddling the equator. Although our models are more complex than Gills simple model, some of these
theoretically-predicted features can be seen by comparing the

13

tropical Pacific wind anomaly (Fig.6) with the corresponding SST anomalies (Fig.5). We highlight the cyclones (C)
straddling the equator by drawing schematic circles. The Gilllike cyclones which are positioned on both sides of the equator and extend to 20 north and south (Fig.6) correspond to
the cold SST anomaly in the eastern-central tropical Pacific
(Fig. 5). The anomalous easterlies on the northern flank of
the cyclone C1 interact with the westerly jet and its meander
which in return reinforces the teleconnection between the
tropical Pacific and other regions of the globe. This interaction promotes the upper-level anomalous cyclone C2 in the
western north Pacific that connects the tropical Pacific to East
Asia. We therefore suggest that the tropical Pacific in MIS13 had a larger share or at least played a modulating role in
providing moisture over East Asia through a summer teleconnection between the EASM and the tropical Pacific. Due to
the westward propagation of the SST anomalies from June
to August (cf., Thuburn and Sutton 2000), the corresponding
cyclones (C1) also move westward (Figs.5, 6). This might
cause an additional interaction between C1 and the westerly
jet, and hence a stronger teleconnection.
Similar characteristics and patterns were also found for
the wind field anomaly in the observations of the modern
La Nia (Yuan and Yan 2013). Moreover, the SST and wind
anomaly shown in Figs.5 and 6, have similar characteristics as the La Nia Modoki (Ashok etal. 2007) which has
been suggested to promote more precipitation over the
monsoon front (Fan etal. 2013). The cooling anomaly in

State of the tropical Pacific Ocean

815

Fig.5Annual cycle of the SST difference between MIS-13 and

PrI in the tropical Pacific versus longitude a CCSM3 b HadCM3. c
annual cycle of SST difference between western (147E) and eastern (276E) tropical Pacific, d annual cycle of the EASM precipita-

tion (averaged over 2040N and 100120E). Annual cycle of the

vertical velocity at 700mb in the tropical Pacific versus longitude e
CCSM3 f HadCM3 (note that the negative velocity is upward). The
panels related to the tropical Pacific are first averaged over 5S5N

the central tropical Pacific and the development of the associated upper-level anomalous cyclone in the western north
Pacific as discussed above also resembles the Pacific-East
Asian teleconnection of Wang etal. (2000). Although this
teleconnection was suggested to operate between the East
Asian winter monsoon and ENSO in the modern climate, it
could also operate in summer as found in our results.

whether ENSO-related events were present in MIS13 and if so, to what extent they influenced EASM. To
find the dominant modes of interannual variability in the
tropical Pacific SST, the Empirical Orthogonal Function
(EOF) was calculated from our 1,200months of SST data
(taken from the last 100years of our simulations) in the
region between 15S15N and 145E280E, which
cover NINO regions 14. EOFs are mathematical tool
and known to show the spatial mode (pattern) of variability and correlations. Before calculating the EOFs the
monthly mean climatology was subtracted from the original monthly time-series to produce a time-series of 1,200
monthly anomalies. Our focus is on the first two EOFs
that together, as will be shown, explain more than 50% of
the total variance.
In the EOF plots, the regions with the same sign vary
in phase with each other, and the larger values correspond
to the higher amplitudes of the variability. The first EOF
(EOF1) as the dominant mode shows the canonical ENSO

4MIS13 ENSO characteristics

The interannual variability of the tropical Pacific SST and
EASM precipitation around their climatological means
(Sect. 3) will be discussed in this section.
4.1Was ENSO persistent inMIS13?
As ENSO is the main mode of interannual variability
in the modern tropical Pacific, it is of interest to know

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M. P. Karami etal.

Fig.6Eddy wind field anomaly (difference between MIS-13 and

PrI) at 250mb calculated after removing the zonal mean is shown for
June, July and August from top to down. Left column is CCSM3 and

right is HadCM3. We show the cyclones by schematic circles. Vectors

smaller than 0.5m/s are not shown

pattern in both MIS-13 and PrI (Fig.7ad). The principal

components corresponding to the EOF1 vary at time scales
of 35years as would be expected for an ENSO mode (not
shown). The regions of maximum SST variability in EOF1
plots are more to the west compared to the observations,
particularly in the CCSM3 runs (cf., Deser etal. 2006).
The EOF1 of MIS-13 and PrI in CCSM3 are almost spatially identical. HadCM3 MIS-13 has its maximum EOF1
variability in the central equatorial Pacific (220240E).
The percentage of the first EOFs relative to the total variance for the MIS-13 experiments (41% in CCSM3 and
39% in HadCM3) are smaller than those computed for
PrI (51% in CCSM3 and 53% in HadCM3). This indicates a smaller contribution of the first mode in the total
variability of tropical Pacific SSTs in MIS-13. The second
EOF (EOF2) exhibits a dipole pattern on either side of
the equatorial Pacific (Fig.7eh) and has a larger percentage in MIS-13 (11% in CCSM3 and 13% in HadCM3)
than in PrI (9% in CCSM3 and 5% in HadCM3). As with
EOF1, the CCSM3 MIS-13 and PrI simulations have similar EOF2 patterns. This is not the case in HadCM3 where
MIS-13 and PrI have different EOF2 patterns, particularly
in the northern and southern parts of the region considered.

The EOF2 varies on the time scales of 23years, slightly

shorter than EOF1.
To investigate the frequency of variability in the tropical
Pacific SST, the spectrum of SST in the NINO3.4 region
were computed. For this, the monthly mean cycles of SSTs
were first resolved and a 12-month moving average filter
was applied following Douglass (2011). The spectrum
(Fig.8a, b) shows a dominant variability at the interannual
time scale which is associated with ENSO. The CCSM3
PrI run shows a broad spectral peak (above the 99% confidence level) in the 1.54year band, with the highest
peak occurring at 4years. Peaks in the CCSM3 MIS-13
are lower in magnitude and are limited to a narrower band
between 1.5 and 2.5years. Similar results are found for the
power spectrum of NINO3.4 SSTs in HadCM3 where the
significant peaks (above the 99% confidence level) in MIS13 have smaller amplitudes and are concentrated in a narrower band (25.5year band) than in PrI (27year band).
The EOF of the tropical Pacific SST and spectral analysis of NINO3.4 SST show, therefore, that ENSO-type interannual variability remained present in MIS-13 and was
occurring more frequently than in PrI. The probability density function (not shown) for NINO3.4 SST also confirms

13

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State of the tropical Pacific Ocean

Fig.7The first two empirical orthogonal functions (addressed as EOF1 and EOF2) of SST in the Pacific Ocean as a function of latitude and
longitude. Right column is for MIS-13 simulations and the left column is for PrI

these findings and shows that MIS-13 could have been

characterized by more La Nia events than El Nio ones.
To determine the amplitude of ENSO, the standard
deviation of SST in the NINO3.4 region (averaged over
5S5N; 190E240E) is used (e.g., Collins etal.
2001). In the HadCM3, the ENSO amplitude in MIS-13
(0.82C) is found 15% smaller than that in PrI (0.96C).
Similarly for CCSM3, we also find that the ENSO amplitude in MIS-13 (0.92C) is 19% smaller than that in
PrI (1.14C). By applying the F-test, the difference
in the amplitude of ENSO between MIS-13 and PrI (in

both CCSM3 and HadCM3) is found statistically significant (to 95% significance). The ENSO amplitudes in
HadCM3 experiments are at least 11% smaller than those
in CCSM3 with significance of 95%. This can be due to
the fact that the tropical Pacific thermocline in HadCM3
is deeper than in CCSM3.
4.2Enhanced relation betweenENSO andthe EASM
The spectral analysis of the modeled EASM precipitation
(averaged over 2040N and 100120E) is shown in Fig.8

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M. P. Karami etal.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig.8Fast Fourier Transform spectrum after resolving the monthly

mean cycles by a 12-month moving average filter for: a NINO3.4
SST in CCSM3 b NINO3.4 SST in HadCM3 c EASM precipitation in CCSM3 d EASM precipitation in HadCM3. Continuous

lines are for MIS-13, dashed lines are for PrI, black lines are 99%
confidence lines. NINO3.4 is the region averaged over 5S5N and
190E240E. EASM precipitation was first averaged over 2040N
and 100120E

(panels c and d). It demonstrates that interannual variability

of the EASM in both MIS-13 and PrI has a dominant period
between 2 and 4years, and thus appears largely synchronous
with ENSO. The EOF1 of precipitation calculated over the
region between 20 and 50N and 90E140E also varies at
the same time scale as ENSO (i.e., 23years) in both models suggesting a possible impact of ENSO on the interannual variability of EASM. EOF1 explains 12% of the total
variance in both the PrI and MIS-13 simulations of CCSM3.
In HadCM3, however, MIS-13 has a larger variance for the
EOF1 of precipitation (22%) than PrI (10%) which indicates a larger contribution of the ENSO in the total variability
of EASM precipitation in MIS-13. The pattern of EOF1 in
both PrI runs (Fig.14 Appendix) have opposite sign over
southeast (2535N and 100120E) and northeast China
(3545N and 100120E). This suggests that ENSO has
opposite impacts on those regions as is also found for the
modern climate that the ENSOEASM relation may differ
between the northern and the southern parts of EASM (e.g.,
Wu and Wang 2002; Lee etal. 2008). The CCSM3 MIS13 simulation has a similar pattern as the PrI one, but with
a shift to the north. The EOF1 of HadCM3 MIS-13 shows
negative values over large parts of China which indicates that
the impact of ENSO would be distributed more uniformly.
To check if the EASM variability is correlated to the
tropical Pacific SST and whether this relation differed

during MIS-13, the Pearsons coefficient of correlation

between 1,200months of modelled NINO3.4 SST and the
modelled precipitation was computed (Fig.9). Both models
show an increase in correlation towards more positive values in the EASM region in MIS-13 compared to PrI. A positive correlation implies that higher (lower) precipitation is
associated with warmer (colder) NINO3.4 SSTs relative to
their respective means. The increase in correlation is consistent with the enhanced teleconnection between the tropical Pacific and East Asia shown in Sects. 3.3 and 3.4. It can
also be seen that the HadCM3 MIS-13 simulation has a
larger correlation coefficient in the EASM region compared
to the CCSM3 MIS-13 simulation. The positively increased
correlation between NINO3.4 SST and precipitation in our
MIS-13 simulations can be the result of the ENSO (as the
dominant mode of the tropical Pacific SST variability) and/
or the seasonal change in insolation, that force the tropical
temperature and the EASM precipitation in a similar fashion. We will calculate the contribution of ENSO in Sect.
4.3. The correlation coefficients between the NINO3.4 SST
anomalies (difference between MIS-13 and PrI) and precipitation anomalies were also calculated to find the possible relation between the changes in SST and precipitation
of MIS-13 relative to PrI. The positive correlation shows
that NINO3.4 SST and precipitation anomalies have a
tendency to be greater or less than their respective means

13

819

State of the tropical Pacific Ocean

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig.9Pearson correlation map between NINO3.4 SST and precipitation. The color contour/bar shows the value of correlation coefficients. Only the correlation coefficients with a significance level

larger than 95% are shown. Top panels are for CCSM3 runs and
lower panels are for HadCM3

simultaneously. CCSM3 has both positive and negative

correlation coefficients over EASM while HadCM3 has
mainly positive values (Fig.15 Appendix).
The same correlation analysis as above was computed
between precipitation and the North Atlantic Oscillation
(NAO) index (not shown), but did not show a significant
change over the EASM region. However, the mean-climate of MIS-13 has positive NAO-like features (Muri
etal. 2013) which strengthens the relationship between the
tropical Pacific Ocean and EASM (Wu etal. 2012) consistent with our results. The correlation of the Indian Ocean
Dipole Index with EASM also did not show a difference
between MIS-13 and PrI (Muri etal. 2013). Thus ENSO
took on great importance in controlling EASM variability
during MIS-13 than during PrI.

the increased EASM precipitation in MIS-13 is related to

changes in ENSO. First, NINO3 SST anomalies were calculated with respect to the mean climatology. ENSO events
were defined to be those where the December NINO3 SST
anomaly exceeds one standard deviation (El Nio) or falls
below minus one standard deviation (La Nia) of NINO3
SST (e.g., Merkel etal. 2010). Those model years in which
the NINO3 SST anomaly fell between minus one and plus
one standard deviation were defined as non-ENSO or normal years.
We define the pure impact of ENSO on precipitation as
the corresponding change in precipitation compared to the
background precipitation (mean precipitation of non-ENSO
years). To compute this, the background precipitation was
subtracted from the precipitation of the ENSO years and
the average of the resulting values for both MIS-13 and PrI
were calculated. Then, the precipitation difference between
MIS-13 and PrI were separated into their difference in the
impact of ENSO and in background precipitation (Fig.10).
As can be seen, the difference in the pure impact of ENSO
on precipitation between MIS-13 and PrI does not change
in CCSM3 but increases in HadCM3 (i.e., more rainfall)
for most of the regions throughout the globe. It can be
shown that the pure ENSO-driven precipitation over east
China reaches up to 30% of the total precipitation difference between MIS-13 and PrI. This is consistent with the

4.3Isolating the impact ofENSO

Observations show that ENSO events (both El Nio and
La Nia phases) in the modern climate strongly influence
global precipitation (Ropelewski and Halpert 1987). In our
model runs, we also find that the precipitation changes during the modeled ENSO events (e.g., Figure8). Therefore,
it is of interest to compute the pure contribution of ENSO
events to the total change in precipitation of MIS-13. In
other words, we are interested to calculate how much of

13

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M. P. Karami etal.

Fig.10The difference in precipitation between MIS-13 and PrI

(Fig. 2) separated into two parts: ENSO-driven and non-ENSO
driven. Left panels are the difference in precipitation between MIS-13

and PrI after taking into account only the pure impact of ENSO, right
panels are the difference in precipitation between MIS-13 and PrI for
their non-ENSO years

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig.11Summer (JJA) precipitation change driven by ENSO teleconnection shown as the difference between El Nio and La Nia precipitation
composites for: a CCSM3 MIS-13 b CCSM3 PrI c HadCM3 MIS-13 d HadCM3 PrI

increased EOF1 variance of EASM precipitation in MIS13 compared to PrI for HadCM3 (Sect. 4.2). The difference in the pure impact of ENSO on precipitation between

13

HadCM3 and CCSM3 illustrates one of the mechanisms

contributing towards HadCM3s better representation of
MIS-13 EASM.

821

State of the tropical Pacific Ocean

4.4ENSO teleconnection
To indentify the difference in ENSO teleconnections
between MIS-13 and PrI, a composite analysis of summer
(JJA) precipitation was performed. The average effect of El
Nio and La Nia on precipitation can be determined by
these composite maps. By averaging precipitation for the
El Nio years, La Nia years and the non-ENSO years,
their corresponding so-called composite anomalies were
obtained. The difference between the El Nio and La Nia
precipitation composites shows changes in their corresponding pattern of precipitation which is associated with
the difference in their teleconnections (Fig.11). The El
Nio and La Nia composite difference in precipitation in
PrI has a similar pattern to that of the modern-day observation (e.g., Figure8 in Deser etal. 2006) over southern
and central east-China but with smaller magnitudes. In both
models a double ITCZ-like structure and the rainfall distribution over the equatorial Pacific has disappeared in MIS13, likely due to the cooling of the central tropical Pacific.
Over east China, larger precipitation differences between
El Nio and La Nia composites can be seen in MIS-13
suggesting increased ENSO teleconnection during MIS-13.

5Summary andconclusions
With the aim of better understanding the strong EASM during the relatively cool MIS-13 interglacial, we investigated
the role of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Two coupled general
circulation models, HadCM3 and CCSM3, were used to
study the climate of MIS-13 with different insolation and
GHGs than the present day. Results from both models confirm the increased EASM precipitation during MIS-13 compared to PrI. Overall, we leave more confidence to the results
from HadCM3 given its better performance than CCSM3 in
capturing EASM in MIS-13 and at present-day (Lei etal.
2013). It was also shown that the western Pacific subtropical high was strengthened and extended westward in MIS-13
providing more moisture to the EASM. The additional moisture in MIS-13 came from the northern Pacific Ocean for
CCSM3, and from the Indian Ocean and South China Sea as
well as the northern Pacific Ocean for HadCM3.
We suggested that MIS-13 had a La Nia-like mean
climate in the tropical Pacific and the associated teleconnection with the extra-tropics acted to increase precipitation over EASM. In MIS-13, the increasing trend of the
EASM precipitation during summer was not found for the
landocean thermal contrast. Summer-time cooling in the
central tropical Pacific was suggested to promote more
rainfall over the EASM through maintaining the summer
western Pacific subtropical high (cf., Fan etal. 2013). In
MIS-13, the eastwest SST gradient in the tropical Pacific

was reduced during NH summer (reaching 3C for

HadCM3) and was anticorrelated (around 0.8 with 95%
significance) with EASM precipitation. The reduced east
west SST gradient promoted an upper-level anomalous
cyclone in the western north Pacific which was the main
system connecting the tropical Pacific to the EASM. Thus,
the changes in the tropical Pacific SST contributed to the
intense EASM of MIS-13 next to the larger land-sea thermal contrast driven by the higher summer insolation (e.g.,
Yin etal. 2008).
Based on our modelling analysis we conclude that
ENSO variability was present in MIS-13 with a smaller
amplitude but higher frequency than in PrI. On the other
hand, the precipitation rate in the EASM-region showed
larger correlation with ENSO in MIS-13. This means that
although ENSO variability had smaller amplitude in MIS13 compared to PrI, it had a larger influence on the EASM.
This we relate to the enhanced teleconnection between the
tropical Pacific and East Asia during MIS-13. Moreover,
the pure impact of ENSO on increasing EASM precipitation during MIS-13 was investigated. It was shown that in
HadCM3, the ENSO-related precipitation was stronger in
MIS-13 than in PrI, and accounted for up to 30% of the
total precipitation difference between MIS-13 and PrI. This
was not the case in CCSM3 in which the ENSO-related
precipitation did not significantly differ between MIS-13
and PrI. This could also be one reason explaining better
representation of EASM in HadCM3 compared to CCSM3.
Our results suggest that the state of the tropical Pacific
during the past interglacials could be quite different from
today, which in turn could have changed the relationship
between the tropical Pacific and the EASM. Moreover, it
could also affect the ENSO properties and teleconnections
as was shown in our results. Future research constraining
the state of the tropical Pacific could serve the dual purpose
of resolving the oceanic response of this vitally important
region to interglacial forcing as well as constraining the
enigmatic EASM during MIS-13.
Acknowledgments This work and M. P. Karami were supported
by the European Research Council Advanced Grant EMIS (No
227348 of the Programme Ideas). Q. Z. Yin is supported by the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS). H. Muri
is supported by the Research Council of Norway (Grant agreement
229760). We are grateful to the reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. We thank Dr. Fred Kucharski, Dr. Carlos
Almeida, Gauillame Lenoir and Dr. Tobias Bayr for helpful discussions. Access to computer facilities was facilitated through sponsorship from S. A. Electrabel, Belgium. We are also grateful to CISM
staff at Universit catholique de Louvain for their technical support.

Appendix
See Figs.12, 13, 14, 15.

13

822

M. P. Karami etal.

Fig.12Annual mean average over 5S5N in the tropical Pacific

for the meridional wind stress (Nm2)

Fig.13Annual of average of sea-level pressure. First row is PrI, second row is MIS-13 and the third row is the difference between MIS-13 and
PrI. Left and right columns are related to CCSM3 HadCM3 experiments, respectively

13

823

State of the tropical Pacific Ocean

Fig.14The first two empirical orthogonal functions (addressed as EOF1 and EOF2) of summer precipitation. Right column is for MIS-13
simulations and the left column is for PrI

(b) Correlation of NINO 3.4 SST anomaly with precipitation anomaly;HadCM3

(a) Correlation of NINO 3.4 SST anomaly with precipitation anomaly;CCSM3

0.8

Latitude ( N)

Latitude ( N)

0.6

50

50

50

0.4
0.2
0

0.
0.2
0.4

50

0.6
0.8

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Longitude ( E)

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Longitude ( E)

Fig.15Pearson correlation map between NINO3.4 SST anomaly and precipitation anomaly for a CCSM3 b HadCM3. By anomaly, we mean
the difference in a given variable between MIS-13 and PrI. Only the correlation coefficients with a significance level larger than 95% are shown

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