A powerful climate pattern that dictates weather worldwide is projected to undergo a dramatic transformation due to greenhouse warming, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
A powerful climate pattern that dictates weather worldwide is projected to undergo a dramatic transformation due to greenhouse warming, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Published in Nature Communications, the international research team found that the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) could intensify rapidly over the coming decades and synchronize with other major climate phenomena, reshaping global temperature and rainfall patterns by the end of the 21st century.
The study projects an abrupt shift within the next 30–40 years from irregular El Niño–La Niña cycles to highly regular oscillations, characterized by more dramatic fluctuations in sea surface temperature.
“In a warmer world, the tropical Pacific can undergo a type of climate tipping point, switching from stable to unstable oscillatory behaviour. This is the first time this type of transition has been identified unequivocally in a complex climate model,” said Malte F. Stuecker, lead author of the study and director of the International Pacific Research Center at the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). “Enhanced air–sea coupling in a warming climate, combined with more variable weather in the tropics, leads to a transition in amplitude and regularity.”
Read more at: University of Hawaii
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