Increased El Niño frequency in a climate model forced by future greenhouse warming

A. Timmermann, J. Oberhuber, A. Bacher, M. Esch, M. Latif () and E. Roeckner
Additional contact information
A. Timmermann: Max-Planck-Institut fr Meteorologie
J. Oberhuber: Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum
A. Bacher: Max-Planck-Institut fr Meteorologie
M. Esch: Max-Planck-Institut fr Meteorologie
M. Latif: Max-Planck-Institut fr Meteorologie
E. Roeckner: Max-Planck-Institut fr Meteorologie

Nature, 1999, vol. 398, issue 6729, 694-697

Abstract: Abstract The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon is the strongest natural interannual climate fluctuation1. ENSO originates in the tropical Pacific Ocean and has large effects on the ecology of the region, but it also influences the entire global climate system and affects the societies and economies of manycountries2. ENSO can be understood as an irregular low-frequency oscillation between a warm (El Niño) and a cold (La Niña) state. The strong El Niños of 1982/1983 and 1997/1998, along with the more frequent occurrences of El Niños during the past few decades, raise the question of whether human-induced ‘greenhouse’ warming affects, or will affect, ENSO3. Several global climate models have been applied to transient greenhouse-gas-induced warming simulations to address this question4,6, but the results have been debated owing to the inability of the models to fully simulate ENSO (because of their coarse equatorial resolution)7. Here we present results from a global climate model with sufficient resolution in the tropics to adequately represent the narrow equatorial upwelling and low-frequency waves. When the model is forced by a realistic future scenario of increasing greenhouse-gas concentrations, more frequent El-Niño-like conditions and stronger cold events in the tropical Pacific Ocean result.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/19505 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:398:y:1999:i:6729:d:10.1038_19505

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/19505

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().