Strengthening of the boreal winter Hadley circulation and its connection with ENSO

Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis is carried out for the year-to-year variability of the boreal winter (DJF) mass stream function of the mean meridional circulation (MMC) during the period 1948—2005. The results demonstrate that it is dominated by the equatorially asymmetric and symmetric modes. Further analysis shows that the former mode is linked with the boreal winter Hadley cell mainly on the decadal time-scale, and the latter on the interannual time-scale. The asymmetric mode index (AMI) with a clear upward trend contributes to the decadal strengthening of the boreal Hadley circulation, and is closely correlated with the tropical SST warming, especially in the region of Indo-west Pacific warm pool (INWP). Furthermore, the AMI also contributes to the abrupt change of the correlation coefficient between the boreal Hadley circulation and ENSO after 1976. The symmetric mode index (SMI) with robust and stable linkage with ENSO shows a significant interannual variability, suggesting that the variability of the Hadley circulation is mainly associated with ENSO on the interannual time-scale.