Research funded by CPO’s Modeling, Analysis, prediction, and Projections (MAPP) program will be published in the June 1 issue of the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate.
The El Niño–La Niña asymmetry is evaluated in fourteen CMIP5 coupled models.The results show that an underestimate of ENSO asymmetry, a common problem noted in CMIP3 models, remains a common problem in CMIP5 coupled models.
The weaker ENSO asymmetry in the models primarily results from a weaker SST warm anomaly over the eastern Pacific and a westward shift of the center of the anomaly. In contrast, SST anomalies for the La Niña phase are close to observations.
To view the early release copy online, visit: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00454.1
ENSO asymmetry in CMIP5 models
