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Uncoupled El Niño Warming
Author(s) -
Hu ZengZhen,
McPhaden Michael J.,
Kumar Arun,
Yu JinYi,
Johnson Nathaniel C.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2020gl087621
Subject(s) - climatology , extratropical cyclone , anomaly (physics) , environmental science , sea surface temperature , el niño southern oscillation , global warming , decoupling (probability) , southern oscillation , climate model , atmospheric sciences , atmosphere (unit) , effects of global warming on oceans , atmospheric circulation , oceanography , climate change , geology , geography , meteorology , physics , control engineering , engineering , condensed matter physics
In light of a warming climate, the complexity of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) makes its prediction a challenge. In addition to various flavors of ENSO, oceanic warming in the central and eastern tropical Pacific is not always accompanied by corresponding atmospheric anomalies; that is, the atmosphere and ocean remain uncoupled. Such uncoupled warm events as happened in 1979, 2004, 2014, and 2018 are rare and represent an unusual form of ENSO diversity. A weaker zonal sea surface temperature anomaly gradient across the tropical Pacific compared to a conventional El Niño may partially account for the decoupling. Also, the uncoupled warm events typically start late in the calendar year, which raises the possible influence of seasonality in background conditions for the lack of coupling. Without coupling, the impact of the warming in the central and eastern tropical Pacific on extratropical climate is different from that of its coupled counterpart.