The Asian– Australian monsoon and El Niño–Southern Oscillation in the NCAR Climate System Model

Features associated with the Asian–Australian monsoon system and El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are described in the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) global coupled Climate System Model (CSM). Simulation characteristics are compared with a version of the atmospheric component of the CSM, the NCAR CCM3, run with time-evolving SSTs from 1950 to 1994, and with observations. The CSM is shown to represent most major features of the monsoon system in terms of mean climatology, interannual variability, and connections to the tropical Pacific. This includes a representation of the Southern Oscillation links between strong Asian–Australian monsoons and associated negative SST anomalies in the eastern equatorial Pacific. The equatorial SST gradient across the Pacific in the CSM is shown to be similar to the observed with somewhat cooler mean SSTs across the entire Pacific by about 18–28C. The seasonal cycle of SSTs in the eastern equatorial Pacific has the characteristic signature seen in the observations of relatively warmer SSTs propagating westward in the first half of the year followed by the reestablishment of the cold tongue with relatively colder SSTs propagating westward in the second half of the year. Like other global coupled models, the propagation is similar to the observed but with the establishment of the relatively warmer water in the first half of the year occurring about 1–2 months later than observed. The seasonal cycle of precipitation in the tropical eastern Pacific is als