Global Impacts of El Niño on Terrestrial Moisture Recycling

Posada-Marín, José A.; Arias, Paola A.; Jaramillo, Fernando; Salazar, Juan F.

doi:10.1029/2023gl103147

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…We analysed the quantitative flow dependencies between subcontinents and oceans to ensure the integrity of the global flow network after the IPF reconciliation and then assessed countries as either net importers/exporters of moisture as well as their TMR and DMR ratios. Our country scale hotspots of high TMR in Figure 3a correspond to locations of high-intensity TMR values in grid-based maps presented in previous studies based on the UTrack dataset, such as Tuinenburg et al (2020) [12] and Posada-Marin et al ( 2023) [21]. Net import and net export information on terrestrial flows, as well as TMR and DMR ratios, are useful tools to enhance the applicability of inter-regional land use policies to safeguard atmospheric water flows as a common, public and transboundary good.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Reconciling tracked atmospheric water flows to close the global freshwater cycle

De Petrillo,

Fahrländer,

Tuninetti

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Atmospheric moisture plays a vital role in the hydrological cycle, connecting evap oration sources to precipitation sinks. While high-resolution moisture-tracking models offer valuable insight, discrepancies to atmospheric re-analysis data emerge. In this study, we reconcile tracked atmospheric water flows with reanal ysis data, using the Iterative Proportional Fitting procedure (IPF). We apply IPF to the atmospheric moisture flows from the UTrack dataset (averaged over 2008-2017), aggregated within countries and ocean boundaries. This reconciled dataset ensures that the total tracked atmospheric moisture equals the total precipitation at the sink and evaporation at the source on an annual basis. Country-scale discrepancies of up to 275% in precipitation and 225% in evapo ration are amended, correcting fluxes by 0˜.07%, on average. We find 45% of the total terrestrial precipitation (˜1.5 ·105 km3yr−1) originates from land evaporation (9.8 ·104 km3yr−1). Our reconciled country-scale dataset offers new ground to investigate transboundary atmospheric water flows which connect us globally.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Reconciling tracked atmospheric water flows to close the global freshwater cycle

De Petrillo,

Fahrländer,

Tuninetti

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomena is an interannual climate variability with oceanic and atmospheric climate variation originating in the tropical Pacific region. ENSO is one of the most influential modes of variability largely due to its global teleconnections, which affect temperature and precipitation patterns worldwide (Bjerknes, 1966; Capotondi et al, 2015; Dijkstra, 2006; McPhaden et al, 2006; Posada‐Marín et al, 2023; Wang et al, 2017). ENSO cycles are characterized by complex air–sea feedback processes, resulting in substantial droughts and flooding events (Fasullo et al, 2018; Kirtman, 2019; Latif et al, 1994; L'Heureux et al, 2020; Stevenson et al, 2012; Timmermann et al, 2018; Yun et al, 2021).…”

Section: The Enso Impact Conundrum: From a Global To A Regional Persp...mentioning

confidence: 99%

ENSO sentinels in the Americas' humid tropics: We need combined hydrometric and isotopic monitoring for improved El Niño and La Niña impact prediction

Sánchez‐Murillo,

Birkel,

Boll

et al. 2023

Hydrological Processes

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This Scientific Briefing presents results from a nearly 10‐year hydrometric and isotope monitoring network across north‐central Costa Rica, a region known as a headwater‐dependent system. This monitoring system has recorded different El Niño and La Niña events and the direct/indirect effects of several hurricane and tropical storm passages. Our results show that El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) exerts a significant but predictable impact on rainfall amount anomalies, groundwater level and spring discharge, as evidenced by second‐order water isotope parameters (e.g., line conditioned‐excess or line‐conditioned (LC)‐excess). Sea surface temperature anomaly (El Niño Region 3) is correlated with a reduction in mean annual and cold front rainfall across the headwaters of north‐central Costa Rica. During El Niño conditions, rainfall is substantially reduced (up to 69.2%) during the critical cold fronts period, limiting groundwater recharge and promoting an early onset of minimum baseflow conditions (up to 5 months). In contrast, La Niña is associated with increased rainfall and groundwater recharge (up to 94.7% during active cold front periods). During La Niña, the long‐term mean spring discharge (39 Ls−1) is exceeded 63–80% of the time, whereas, during El Niño, the exceedance time ranges between 26% and 44%. The regional hydroclimatic variability is also imprinted on the hydrogen and oxygen isotopic compositions of meteoric waters. Drier conditions favoured lower LC‐excess in rainfall (−17.3‰) and spring water (−6.5‰), whereas wetter conditions resulted in greater values (rainfall = +17.5‰; spring water = +10.7‰). The lower and higher LC‐excess values in rainfall corresponded to the very strong 2014–2016 El Niño and 2018 La Niña, respectively. During the recent triple‐dip 2021–23 La Niña, LC‐excess exhibited a significant and consistently increasing trend. These findings highlight the importance of combining hydrometric, synoptic and isotopic monitoring as ENSO sentinels to advance our current understanding of ENSO impacts on hydrological systems across the humid Tropics. Such information is critical to constraining the 21st century projections of future water stress across this fragile region.

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