{"id":83044,"date":"2018-08-09T11:48:14","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T21:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=83044"},"modified":"2020-05-08T11:34:53","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T21:34:53","slug":"differences-in-el-nino-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2018\/08\/09\/differences-in-el-nino-events\/","title":{"rendered":"Study finds differences in El Ni\u00f1o events"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"676\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NDcRJNS_wuc?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0 \" title=\"YouTube video player\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-018-0252-6\">A research study<\/a>, published by an international team of climate scientists in the journal <em>Nature<\/em>, isolates key mechanisms that cause El Ni\u00f1o to differ from one event to the next. The team found that the complexity and irregular occurrence of El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a events can be traced back to the co-existence of two coupled atmosphere-ocean oscillations, with different spatial characteristics and different frequencies.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_83199\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-83199\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-peru.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-peru-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"brown water pouring out of dam\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-83199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-peru-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-peru-630x353.jpg 630w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-peru.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-83199\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">El Ni\u00f1o effects in Peru, 1997.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This new understanding will help researchers determine whether to expect shifts of El Ni\u00f1o characteristics as the global climate changes.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Our study reveals that there is a hidden structure in the seemingly chaotic and unpredictable occurrence of El Ni\u00f1o events,&rdquo; said lead author <strong>Axel Timmermann<\/strong>, director of the Institute for Basic Science Center for Climate Physics at Pusan National University and a former professor at the <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span> at M\u0101noa<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.soest.hawaii.edu\/soestwp\/\">School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology<\/a> (<abbr>SOEST<\/abbr>).<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Finally we can attribute the observed complexity of the most powerful natural climate engine to the co-existence of two oscillatory states of the underlying mathematical equations,&rdquo; said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.soest.hawaii.edu\/met\/Faculty\/jff\/index.html\"><strong>Fei-Fei Jin<\/strong><\/a>, the <abbr>SOEST<\/abbr> professor of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.soest.hawaii.edu\/met\/\">atmospheric sciences<\/a> who led the development of the new mathematical framework for El Ni\u00f1o complexity presented in the study.<\/p>\n<h2>More on El Ni\u00f1o<\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_83197\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-83197\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-maps.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-maps-300x197.jpg\" alt=\"two world maps, one map indicates ocean warning in red and the other shows ocean cooling in blue\" width=\"300\" height=\"197\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-83197\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-maps-300x197.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-maps.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-83197\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maps showing the warming (red) of the central Pacific Ocean during El Ni\u00f1o and the cooling (blue) of the central Pacific Ocean during La Ni\u00f1a. (Credit: Steve Albers, <abbr title=\"National Aeronautics and Space Administration\">NASA<\/abbr>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>El Ni\u00f1o events are characterized by an unusual warming of the central to eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, which can last up to one year. On average El Ni\u00f1o events lead to a drying of Southeastern Asia and the Western tropical Pacific while enhancing rainfall near the eastern Pacific shores, in countries such as Ecuador and Peru. El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s &ldquo;ripple effects&rdquo; are not only found in the atmosphere, but also in ocean currents, ecosystems, the occurrence of natural disasters, global markets and national economies.<\/p>\n<p>Climate scientists have long recognized that not every El Ni\u00f1o is alike. Some are weak, others are strong. Some occur in the Central Pacific, others in the east. These differences will determine which areas will be hit hardest by climatic extremes and which ones will be spared. Predicting El Ni\u00f1o events accurately requires a deeper understanding of its diversity or as some scientists call it&#8212;its &ldquo;flavors.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>To clarify the origin of El Ni\u00f1o diversity, a group of 40 climate scientists from 11 countries teamed up to search for the hidden &ldquo;blueprint.&rdquo; Using a computer simulation of El Ni\u00f1o events, the team ran numerous scenarios with small tweaks to the temperature, wind and ocean conditions.<\/p>\n<p>They found that Eastern Pacific El Ni\u00f1o events are characterized by a return time of three to seven years, whereas Central Pacific events tend to recur on average every two to three years. The different character of these modes is determined by how strongly the atmosphere and ocean interact with each other. In the observations however, the co-existing Eastern and Central Pacific warm&#8211;cold swings are far from periodic.<\/p>\n<p>The tropical Pacific climate systems requires additional excitation, either through random weather events or through atmospheric circulation changes induced by temperature changes in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.<\/p>\n<p>These interactions are an important source for El Ni\u00f1o irregularity, and limit how far ahead Tropical Pacific climate anomalies can be predicted.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8212;By Marcie Grabowski<\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_83198\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-83198\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-authors.jpg\" alt=\"large group of people\" width=\"676\" height=\"167\" class=\"size-full wp-image-83198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-authors.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/manoa-soest-el-nino-authors-300x74.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-83198\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-018-0252-6\">&ldquo;El Ni\u00f1o\u2013Southern Oscillation complexity&rdquo;<\/a> <em>Nature<\/em> paper authors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This new understanding of El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a events will help researchers determine whether to expect shifts of El Ni\u00f1o characteristics as the global climate changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[745,98,158,92,9,704],"class_list":["post-83044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-atmospheric-sciences","tag-climate","tag-publication","tag-school-of-ocean-and-earth-science-and-technology","tag-uh-manoa","tag-weather","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83044"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117832,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83044\/revisions\/117832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}