Internal variability in a 1000-yr control simulation with the coupled climate model ECHO-G – II. El Niño Southern Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation

A 1000-yr control simulation (CTL) performed with the atmosphere’ocean global climate model ECHO-G is analysed with regard to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the two major natural climatic variabilities, in comparison with observations and other model simulations. The ENSO-related sea surface temperature climate and its seasonal cycle in the tropical Pacific and a single Intertropical Convergence Zone in the eastern tropical Pacific are simulated reasonably, and the ENSO phase-locking to the annual cycle and the subsurface ocean behaviour related to equatorial wave dynamics are also reproduced well. The simulated amplitude of the ENSO signal is however too large and its occurrence is too regular and frequent. Also, the observed westward propagation of zonal wind stress over the equatorial Pacific is not captured by the model. Nevertheless, the ENSO-related teleconnection patterns of near-surface temperature (T2m), precipitation (PCP) and mean sea level pressure (MSLP) are reproduced realistically.

The NAO index, defined as the MSLP difference between Gibraltar and Iceland, has a ‘white’ noise spectrum similar to that of the detrended index obtained from observed data. The correlation and regression patterns of T2m, PCP and MSLP with the NAO index are also successfully simulated. However, the model overestimates the warming over the North Pacific in the high index phase of the NAO, a feature it shares with other coupled models. This might be associated with an enhanced Atlantic’Pacific teleconnection, which is hardly seen in the observations. A detection analysis of the NAO index shows that the observed recent 40–60 yr trend cannot be explained by the model’s internal variability while the recent 20–30 yr trend occurs with a more than 1% chance in ECHO-G CTL.