Identification

Title

Does ENSO regularity increase in a warming climate?

Abstract

The impact of a warming climate on El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is investigated in large-ensemble simulations of the Community Earth System Model (CESM1). These simulations are forced by historical emissions for the past and the RCP8.5-scenario emissions for future projections. The simulated variance of the Nino-3.4 ENSO index increases from 1.4 degrees C-2 in 1921-80 to 1.9 degrees C-2 in 1981-2040 and 2.2 degrees C-2 in 2041-2100. The autocorrelation time scale of the index also increases, consistent with a narrowing of its spectral peak in the 3-7-yr ENSO band, raising the possibility of greater seasonal to interannual predictability in the future. Low-order linear inverse models (LIMs) fitted separately to the three 60-yr periods capture the CESM1 increase in ENSO variance and regularity. Remarkably, most of the increase can be attributed to the increase in the 23-month damping time scale of a single damped oscillatory ENSO eigenmode of these LIMs by 5 months in 1981-2040 and 6 months in 2041-2100. These apparently robust projected increases may, however, be compromised by CESM1 biases in ENSO amplitude and damping time scale. An LIM fitted to the 1921-80 observations has an ENSO eigenmode with a much shorter 8-month damping time scale, similar to that of several other eigenmodes. When the mode's damping time scale is increased by 5 and 6 months in this observational LIM, a much smaller increase of ENSO variance is obtained than in the CESM1 projections. This may be because ENSO is not as dominated by a single ENSO eigenmode in reality as it is in the CESM1.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7qf8x1s

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2020-02-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact