Unknown

Dataset Information

0

Multi-year El Nino events tied to the North Pacific Oscillation.


ABSTRACT: 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.

SUBMITTER: Ding R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9256710 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

Similar Datasets

| S-EPMC7210262 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC10567839 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC5758867 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC9666538 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC4640731 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC10600212 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC4200402 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC4938084 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC8581011 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC2791570 | biostudies-literature