Science Source
Wenju Cai, Agus Santoso, Guojian Wang, Sang-Wook Yeh, Soon-Il An, Kim M. Cobb, Mat Collins, Eric Guilyardi, Fei-Fei Jin, Jong-Seong Kug, Matthieu Lengaigne, Michael J. McPhaden, Ken Takahashi, Axel Timmermann, Gabriel Vecchi, Masahiro Watanabe, Lixin Wu
Nature Climate Change
Published date August 17, 2015

ENSO and greenhouse warming

  • States that the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant climate phenomenon affecting extreme weather conditions worldwide
  • Cites recent studies that have provided new insights into the elusive links between changes in ENSO and in the mean state of the Pacific climate
  • Expects the projected slow-down in Walker circulation to weaken equatorial Pacific Ocean currents, boosting the occurrences of eastward-propagating warm surface anomalies that characterize observed extreme El Niño events
  • Expects accelerated equatorial Pacific warming, particularly in the east, to induce extreme rainfall in the eastern equatorial Pacific and extreme equatorward swings of the Pacific convergence zones, both of which are features of extreme El Niño
  • Anticipates the frequency of extreme La Niña to increase in response to more extreme El Niños
  • Predicts ENSO-related catastrophic weather events will occur more frequently with unabated greenhouse-gas emissions

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