ENSO and greenhouse warming

Cai, Wenju; Santoso, Agus; Wang, Guojian; Yeh, Sang‐Wook; An, Soon Il; Cobb, Kim M.; Collins, Matthew; Guilyardi, Éric; Jin, Fei; Kug, Jong‐Seong; Lengaigne, Matthieu; McPhaden, Michael J.; Takahashi, K.; Timmermann, Axel; Vecchi, Gabriel A.; Watanabe, Masahiro; Wu, Lixin

doi:10.1038/nclimate2743

Cited by 664 publications

(585 citation statements)

References 98 publications

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“…It is projected that the frequency of extreme El Niño events will increase due to greenhouse warming (Cai et al, 2015), which could significantly impact global weather patterns, ecosystems, agriculture, drought, floods, and other extreme events (Aronson et al, 2000;Cai et al, 2014;Vos et al, 1999). Yeh et al (2009) showed that climate change will increase the frequency of the CP-El Niño compared to the EPEl Niño by using CMIP3 climate models.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of two different types of El Niño events on runoff over the conterminous United States

Tang¹,

Li²,

Sun³

2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The responses of river runoff to shifts of largescale climatic patterns are of increasing concerns to water resource planners and managers for long-term climate change adaptation. El Niño, as one of the most dominant modes of climate variability, is closely linked to hydrologic extremes such as floods and droughts that cause great loss of lives and properties. However, the different impacts of the two types of El Niño, i.e., central Pacific (CP-) and eastern Pacific (EP-)El Niño, on runoff across the conterminous US (CONUS) are not well understood. This study characterizes the impacts of the CP-and EP-El Niño on seasonal and annual runoff using observed streamflow data from 658 reference gaging stations and the NCAR-CCSM4 model. We found that surface runoff responds similarly to the two types of El Niño events in southeastern, central, southern, and western coastal regions, but differently in northeast (NE), Pacific northwest (PNW) and west north central (WNC) climatic zones. Specifically, EP-El Niño events tend to bring above-average runoff in NE, WNC, and PNW throughout the year while CP-El Niño events cause below-than normal runoff in the three regions. Similar findings were also found by analyzing NCAR-CCSM4 model outputs that captured both the CP-and EP-El Niño events, representing the best data set among CMIP5 models. The CCSM4 model simulates lower runoff values during CP-El Niño years than those in EP-El Niño over all of the three climatic regions (NE, PNW, and WNC) during 1950-1999. In the future (2050-2099), for both types of El Niño years, runoff is projected to increase over the NE and PNW regions, mainly due to increased precipitation (P ). In contrast, the increase of future evapotranspiration (ET) exceeds that of future P , leading to a projected decrease in runoff over the WNC region. In addition, model analysis indicates that all of the three regions (NE, PNW, and WNC) are projected to have lower runoff in CP-El Niño years than in EP-El Niño years. Our study suggests that the US water resources may be distributed more unevenly in space and time with more frequent and intense flood and drought events. The findings from this study have important implications to water resource management at regional scales. Information generated from this study may help water resource planners to anticipate the influence of two different types of El Niño events on droughts and floods across the CONUS.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of two different types of El Niño events on runoff over the conterminous United States

Tang¹,

Li²,

Sun³

2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…S6). Since the Niño4 SST anomaly is related to the warm pool expansion having important roles in El Niño onset and growth (Picaut et al 1996;Lengaigne et al 2004) and is a measure of the central Pacific El Niño and La Niña (Takahashi et al 2011;Cai et al 2015), the above relationship implies that not only WWEs but also EWEs are probabilistically state dependent as suggested by Jin et al (2007).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetry of Westerly and Easterly Wind Events: Observational Evidence

Hayashi

2016

SOLA

Self Cite

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Westerly (WWEs) and easterly (EWEs) wind events, shortlived anomalous westerly and easterly surface winds, are known to occur with unusual large magnitude over the equatorial Pacific. As their relative frequency of occurrence and dependence on background conditions are yet to be fully clarified, we analyzed daily surface winds for 1982−2013 from which WWEs and EWEs are detected. Both types of events appear over the Pacific warm pool, where sea surface temperature (SST) is sufficiently high for active deep convection, and favorably occur with increasing Niño4 SST. However, the frequency of occurrence of EWEs is less than that of WWEs, resulting in asymmetry in wind amplitude. Local and remote anomalous convections are equally important in exciting these events, but different local development processes cause the asymmetry in the frequency of occurrence. These results can also be seen in wind stress anomalies, albeit obscured due to nonlinearity therein.(Citation: Hayashi, M., and M. Watanabe, 2016: Asymmetry of westerly and easterly wind events: Observational evidence. SOLA, 12, 42−45,

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“…It is also projected that with further global warming, the variation between the warm and cold phases of the ENSO will become more extreme [27], leading to more extreme droughts and more intense rain events in areas affected by a teleconnection to that ocean cycle. The first axis explains 35% of the overall variation in this dataset, while the second axis explains just under 12%.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response of Zooplankton to Climate Variability: Droughts Create a Perfect Storm for Cladocerans in Shallow Eutrophic Lakes

Havens

Beaver³

et al. 2017

Water

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Abstract:A major attribute of the Earth's climate that may be affected by global warming is the amplitude of variability in teleconnections. These global-scale processes involve links between oceanic conditions in one locale and weather in another, often distant, locale. An example is the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which can affect rainfall and then the properties of lakes in Europe, Africa, North and South America. It affects rainfall, droughts and the depth of lakes in Florida, USA. It is predicted that the amplitude of variation in the ENSO will increase with global warming and, therefore, droughts will become more severe and periods of rain more intense. We investigated possible effects of climate on the zooplankton in shallow subtropical lakes by studying 16 years of monthly data from six shallow eutrophic lakes located north of Orlando, Florida. Results indicate that water depth and lake volume are tightly coupled with rainfall, as expected. During droughts, when lake depth and volume were greatly reduced, there were intensified cyanobacterial blooms, and the zooplankton shifted towards greater relative biomass of copepods compared to cladocerans. The change of zooplankton was likely due to the intensified selective fish predation in the reduced water volume, and/or selective adverse effects of cyanobacteria on cladocerans. The greatly reduced volume might lead to a 'perfect storm' of top-down and bottom-up factors that favor copepods over cladocerans. The mechanism needs further study. Regardless, this study documents a direct link between climate variability and zooplankton composition, and suggests how future changes in climate might affect plankton communities.

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ENSO and greenhouse warming

Cited by 664 publications

References 98 publications

Impact of two different types of El Niño events on runoff over the conterminous United States

Impact of two different types of El Niño events on runoff over the conterminous United States

Asymmetry of Westerly and Easterly Wind Events: Observational Evidence

Response of Zooplankton to Climate Variability: Droughts Create a Perfect Storm for Cladocerans in Shallow Eutrophic Lakes

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