The Importance of the NAO for the ENSO - Tropical Atlantic Teleconnection

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences the weather around the globe. These so-called ‘teleconnections’ occur on sub-seasonal-to-seasonal timescales, and can be useful for weather and climate predictions. ENSO teleconnections can reach as far as the North Atlantic-European (NAE) region, where ENSO influences remain insufficiently understood. ENSO teleconnections to the NAE region can travel through a range of different pathways, with differences in seasonality for each pathway. We here focus on determining the importance of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) for establishing the connection between the tropical Pacific and the tropical Atlantic, following an ENSO event. We use reanalysis data in combination with a simplified atmospheric global circulation model with ENSO-like sea surface temperature (SST) forcing to investigate both the isolated and combined influences from these different pathways. Initial results suggest that the NAO’s influence onto the tropical Atlantic may play a minor role, as surface wind impacts are likely too far north to contribute to a wind-evaporation-SST (WES) feedback within the tropical Atlantic. Shifts in the longitudinal position of ENSO may, however, cause changes in the influence from the NAO onto the tropical Atlantic. Such changes may help in explaining the presence of significantly different spatial patterns of SST in the tropical Atlantic, following different ENSO flavors.