Different impact of central Pacific and eastern Pacific El Nio on the duration of sudden stratospheric warming

The NCEP-NCAR reanalysis dataset and the HadISST dataset (1959-2014) are used to analyze the impact of two types of El Nio events, i.e., eastern Pacific El Nio (EP-El Nio) and central Pacific El Nio (CP-El Nio) events, on the duration of major and minor sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) in Northern Hemisphere winter (November to February). Although the frequency of major and minor SSWs during different types of El Nio shows no distinct differences, the duration of both major and minor SSWs during CP-El Nio is shorter than that during EP-El Nio. The spatial distribution of geopotential height anomalies preceding major SSWs resembles the western Pacific (WP) teleconnection pattern, while the spatial distribution of geopotential height anomalies preceding minor SSWs bears similarity to the Pacific-North America (PNA) teleconnection pattern. An enhancement of the strength of both wavenumber 1 and wavenumber 2 is found before major SSWs. Before minor SSWs, wavenumber 1 is also strengthened, but wavenumber 2 is weakened. The analysis also reveals that EP-El Nio tends to induce positive phases of PNA and WP teleconnections, while CP-El Nio induces negative-phase WP teleconnection. As the positive phases of the PNA and WP teleconnections are related to the strengthening of wavenumber 1, EP-El Nio causes an enhancement of wavenumber 1 in the high-latitude upper troposphere and an enhancement of the upward wave flux in the high-latitude stratosphere, accompanied by a negative anomaly in Eliassen-Palm flux divergence in the subpolar stratosphere, which accounts for the longer SSW duration during EP-El Nio than during CP-El Nio.