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ENSO and greenhouse warming

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 849–859 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant climate phenomenon affecting extreme weather conditions worldwide. Its response to greenhouse warming has challenged scientists for decades, despite model agreement on projected changes in mean state. Recent studies have provided new insights into the elusive links between changes in ENSO and in the mean state of the Pacific climate. The projected slow-down in Walker circulation is expected to weaken equatorial Pacific Ocean currents, boosting the occurrences of eastward-propagating warm surface anomalies that characterize observed extreme El Niño events. Accelerated equatorial Pacific warming, particularly in the east, is expected 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. The frequency of extreme La Niña is also expected to increase in response to more extreme El Niños, an accelerated maritime continent warming and surface-intensified ocean warming. ENSO-related catastrophic weather events are thus likely to occur more frequently with unabated greenhouse-gas emissions. But model biases and recent observed strengthening of the Walker circulation highlight the need for further testing as new models, observations and insights become available.

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Figure 1: Observed ENSO asymmetry.
Figure 2: Greenhouse-warming-induced changes in ENSO properties.
Figure 3: Greenhouse-warming-induced changes in climate extremes.
Figure 4: Greenhouse-warming-induced change in rainfall response to Niño3 and Niño4 SST anomalies.

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Acknowledgements

W.C. and G.W. are supported by the Australian Climate Change Science Program and a CSIRO Office of Chief Executive Science Leader award. A.S. is supported by the Australian Research Council. M.C. was supported by NERC NE/I022841/1. S.W.Y. is supported by the National Research Fund of Korea grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) (NRF-2009-C1AAA001-2009-0093042). S.I.A. was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (No. 2014R1A2A1A11049497). This is PMEL contribution number 4038.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, Aspendale, 3195, Victoria, Australia

    Wenju Cai & Guojian Wang

  2. Physical Oceanography Laboratory, Qingdao Collaborative Innovation Center of Marine Science and Technology, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003, China

    Wenju Cai & Lixin Wu

  3. Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science and Climate Change Research Centre, Level 4 Mathews Building, The University of New South Wales, 2052, Sydney, Australia

    Agus Santoso

  4. Department of Environmental Marine Science, Hanyang University, Ansan, 426-791, South Korea

    Sang-Wook Yeh

  5. Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Yonsei University, Seoul, 120-749, South Korea

    Soon-Il An

  6. School of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, 311 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, 30332-0340, USA

    Kim M. Cobb

  7. College of Engineering Mathematics and Physical Sciences, Harrison Building, Streatham Campus, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK

    Mat Collins

  8. Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat: Expérimentation et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), IRD/UPMC/CNRS/MNHN, Paris Cedex, 05, France

    Eric Guilyardi & Matthieu Lengaigne

  9. NCAS-Climate, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6BB, UK

    Eric Guilyardi

  10. Department of Meteorology, SOEST, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, 96822, Hawaii, USA

    Fei-Fei Jin

  11. School of Environmental Science & Engineering, Pohang University of Science and technology, Pohang, 790-784, South Korea

    Jong-Seong Kug

  12. NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, 98115, Washington, USA

    Michael J. McPhaden

  13. Instituto Geofísico del Perú, Lima, 169, Perú

    Ken Takahashi

  14. Department of Oceanography, IPRC, SOEST, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, 96822, Hawaii, USA

    Axel Timmermann

  15. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory/NOAA, Princeton, 08540-6649, New Jersey, USA

    Gabriel Vecchi

  16. Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, 277-8564, Japan

    Masahiro Watanabe

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Contributions

W.C., A.S., G.W. and S.W.Y wrote the initial version of the paper. G.W. performed the model output analysis and generated all figures. All authors contributed to interpreting results, discussion of the associated dynamics and improvement of this paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wenju Cai.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Cai, W., Santoso, A., Wang, G. et al. ENSO and greenhouse warming. Nature Clim Change 5, 849–859 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2743

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