CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The ability of numerical models in reproducing the observed statistical links between the seasurface temperature of central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean is analyzed in this paper.Significant links in the whole spectrum of frequency were studied for models of the World ClimateResearch Program (WCRP-CMIP3/IPCC-AR4) using the methodology of wavelet coherence.During the second half of the 20th century, in-phase or quasi-in-phase links in oscillations of 2-6yrs, a lack of relation in oscillations of 8-12 yrs and time lagged links in the longest periodicities aredetected in the observed dataset. Some of the analyzed models are able to reproduce the observed relationships in oscillations shorter than 6 yrs and few of them also reproduce the lacks of significant relation in the band of 8-12 yrs. On the other hand, all models have serious problems to represent the observed time lagged links in the longest waves.The analysis shows that climate models are still unable to reproduce specific features of tropicalPacific interactions with potential effect on the Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation and,in particular, the South American climatic variability.