Multi-year El Niño events tied to the North Pacific Oscillation

Details

• Journal Title:
  Nature Communications
• Personal Author:
  Ding, Ruiqiang ; Tseng, Yu‐Heng ; Di Lorenzo, Emanuele ; Shi, Liang ; Li, Jianping ; Yu, Jin-Yi ; Wang, Chunzai ; Sun, Cheng ; Luo, Jing-Jia ; Ha, Kyung‑Ja ; Hu, Zeng-Zhen ; Li, Feifei
• NOAA Program & Office:
  NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) ; NWS (National Weather Service) ; CPC (Climate Prediction Center)
• Description:
  Multi-year El Niño events induce severe and persistent floods and droughts worldwide, with significant socioeconomic impacts, but the causes of their long-lasting behaviors are still not fully understood. Here we present a two-way feedback mechanism between the tropics and extratropics to argue that extratropical atmospheric variability associated with the North Pacific Oscillation (NPO) is a key source of multi-year El Niño events. The NPO during boreal winter can trigger a Central Pacific El Niño during the subsequent winter, which excites atmospheric teleconnections to the extratropics that re-energize the NPO variability, then re-triggers another El Niño event in the following winter, finally resulting in persistent El Niño-like states. Model experiments, with the NPO forcing assimilated to constrain atmospheric circulation, reproduce the observed connection between NPO forcing and the occurrence of multi-year El Niño events. Future projections of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phases 5 and 6 models demonstrate that with enhanced NPO variability under future anthropogenic forcing, more frequent multi-year El Niño events should be expected. We conclude that properly accounting for the effects of the NPO on the evolution of El Niño events may improve multi-year El Niño prediction and projection.
• Keywords:
  General Biochemistry, Genetics And Molecular Biology General Chemistry General Physics And Astronomy Multidisciplinary General Biochemistry, Genetics And Molecular Biology General Physics And Astronomy General Biochemistry, Genetics And Molecular Biology General Physics And Astronomy
• Source:
  Nature Communications, 13(1)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31516-9
• ISSN:
  2041-1723
• Format:
  PDF
• Publisher:
  Springer Science and Business Media LLC
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:26c7456da04eda13cd988b326061a245c1343069db48860d4d4e1739f390770ab37ce0ed2f9f48a9a1d643085bd6387060f3d84b7ea4a5ef1731aac902ee5464
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/63588/noaa_63588_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.75 MB ]