• Increasing frequency of El Nin~o events

    From ScienceDaily@1:317/3 to All on Mon Mar 7 21:30:50 2022
    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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