Classification of warm and cold water events in the eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

Abstract For the tropical Atlantic Ocean two phenomena showing anomalous sea surface temperature ( SST ) warming have been described: the Atlantic Niño in the equatorial Atlantic and the Benguela Niño off the Angolan coast. In this study, both Niño types are integrated into a new set of SST regions and the definition of a robust standardized index for the long‐term period 1870–2011. Comparisons of these regions and indices show a close connection between anomalous warming and cooling in the equatorial Atlantic and the Benguela region. Therefore, instead of considering equatorial Atlantic and Benguela warm and cold events separately, we propose to classify them into three subtypes of one comprehensive Atlantic Niño. Copyright © 2013 Royal Meteorological Society