Emergence of changing Central-Pacific and Eastern-Pacific El Niño-Southern Oscillation in a warming climate

Tao Geng; Wenju Cai; Lixin Wu; Agus Santoso; Guojian Wang; Zhao Jing; Bolan Gan; Yun Yang; Shujun Li; Shengpeng Wang; Zhaohui Chen; Michael J McPhaden

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-33930-5

Emergence of changing Central-Pacific and Eastern-Pacific El Niño-Southern Oscillation in a warming climate

Nat Commun. 2022 Nov 15;13(1):6616. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-33930-5.

Authors

Tao Geng^{1

2}, Wenju Cai^{3

4

5}, Lixin Wu^{6

7}, Agus Santoso^{8

9

10}, Guojian Wang^{1

2

8}, Zhao Jing^{1

2}, Bolan Gan^{1

2}, Yun Yang¹¹, Shujun Li^{1

2}, Shengpeng Wang^{1

2}, Zhaohui Chen^{1

2}, Michael J McPhaden¹²

Affiliations

¹ Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao), Qingdao, China.
² Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System and Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China.
³ Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao), Qingdao, China. wenju.cai@csiro.au.
⁴ Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System and Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China. wenju.cai@csiro.au.
⁵ Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research (CSHOR), CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, TAS, Australia. wenju.cai@csiro.au.
⁶ Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao), Qingdao, China. lxwu@ouc.edu.cn.
⁷ Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System and Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China. lxwu@ouc.edu.cn.
⁸ Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research (CSHOR), CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, TAS, Australia.
⁹ ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
¹⁰ Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
¹¹ College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
¹² NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, WA, USA.

Abstract

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) features strong warm events in the eastern equatorial Pacific (EP), or mild warm and strong cold events in the central Pacific (CP), with distinct impacts on global climates. Under transient greenhouse warming, models project increased sea surface temperature (SST) variability of both ENSO regimes, but the timing of emergence out of internal variability remains unknown for either regime. Here we find increased EP-ENSO SST variability emerging by around 2030 ± 6, more than a decade earlier than that of CP-ENSO, and approximately four decades earlier than that previously suggested without separating the two regimes. The earlier EP-ENSO emergence results from a stronger increase in EP-ENSO rainfall response, which boosts the signal of increased SST variability, and is enhanced by ENSO non-linear atmospheric feedback. Thus, increased ENSO SST variability under greenhouse warming is likely to emerge first in the eastern than central Pacific, and decades earlier than previously anticipated.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cold Temperature*
El Nino-Southern Oscillation*