Increasing frequency of El Nin~o events expected by 2040
Date:
March 7, 2022
Source:
University of Exeter
Summary:
Global weather fluctuations called El Nin~o events are likely to
become more frequent by 2040, a new study shows.
FULL STORY ========================================================================== Global weather fluctuations called El Nin~o events are likely to become
more frequent by 2040, a new study shows.
==========================================================================
El Nin~o -- the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean -affects climate, ecosystems and societies worldwide.
The study examined four possible scenarios for future carbon emissions,
and found increased risk of El Nin~o events in all four.
This means El Nin~o events and associated climate extremes are now more
likely "regardless of any significant mitigation actions" to reduce
emissions, the researchers warn.
Lead author Dr Jun Ying, from the Second Institute of Oceanography,
Ministry of Natural Resources in China and the University of Exeter,
said: "We know from previous studies that, when measuring El Nin~o
changes in terms of rainfall shifts in the eastern equatorial Pacific,
models predict an increase in the frequency of events.
"This study shows that those changes could happen after the next two
decades." The study, published in Nature Climate Change, examines
the "time of emergence" of changes in the tropical Pacific using state-of-the-art climate models.
==========================================================================
The time of emergence is defined as when the signal of climate change
emerges from the usual background noise of natural climate variability.
When looking at changes in El Nin~o rainfall patterns, the best estimate
of the time of emergence of changes converges on 2040 in all of the four emissions scenarios considered.
Co-author Professor Mat Collins, from the University of Exeter and part of
the Global Systems Institute, added: "What surprised us is that changes
emerge regardless of the scenario we look at.
"Because rainfall in the tropics is associated with the warmest sea
surface temperatures (SSTs), it is the relative changes in SST that are
more important than the absolute change.
"This leads us to the rather stark conclusion that these changes are essentially unavoidable." The study was carried out by Dr Ying as
part of a year-long Chinese Scholarship Council sponsored visit to the University of Exeter.
The paper is entitled: "Emergence
of Climate Change in the Tropical Pacific." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Exeter. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.
========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Jun Ying, Matthew Collins, Wenju Cai, Axel Timmermann, Ping
Huang, Dake
Chen, Karl Stein. Emergence of climate change in the tropical
Pacific.
Nature Climate Change, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01301-z ==========================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220307113147.htm
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