Predictability of European winter 2019/20: Indian Ocean dipole impacts on the NAO

• Published in: Atmospheric Science Letters
• Main Authors: Hardiman, Steven C., Dunstone, Nick J., Scaife, Adam A., Smith, Doug M., Knight, Jeff R., Davies, Paul, Claus, Martin, Greatbatch, Richard John
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Royal Meteorological Society 2020
• Subjects: Indian; Pacific; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/50285/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/50285/7/asl.1005.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1002/asl.1005

Northern Europe and the UK experienced an exceptionally warm and wet winter in 2019/20, driven by an anomalously positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). This positive NAO was well forecast by several seasonal forecast systems, suggesting that this winter the NAO was highly predictable at seasonal lead times. A very strong positive Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) event was also observed at the start of winter. Here we use composite analysis and model experiments, to show that the IOD was a key driver of the observed positive NAO. Using model experiments that perturb the Indian Ocean initial conditions, two teleconnection pathways of the IOD to the north Atlantic emerge: a tropospheric teleconnection pathway via a Rossby wave train travelling from the Indian Ocean over the Pacific and Atlantic, and a stratospheric teleconnection pathway via the Aleutian region and the stratospheric polar vortex. These pathways are similar to those for the El Niño Southern Oscillation link to the north Atlantic which are already well documented. The anomalies in the north Atlantic jet stream location and strength, and the associated precipitation anomalies over the UK and northern Europe, as simulated by the model IOD experiments, show remarkable agreement with those forecast and observed.