Mechanisms linking multi-year La Niña with preceding strong El Niño

Abstract El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), characterized by anomalous sea surface temperature in the central-eastern equatorial Pacific, is a dominant interannual variability, impacting worldwide weather and socioeconomics. The ENSO cycle contains irregularity, in which La Niña often persists for...

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Autores principales:	Tomoki Iwakiri, Masahiro Watanabe
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/1638e55b07b04d3ba72cf426cb9f68a5
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:1638e55b07b04d3ba72cf426cb9f68a52021-12-02T18:53:09ZMechanisms linking multi-year La Niña with preceding strong El Niño10.1038/s41598-021-96056-62045-2322https://doaj.org/article/1638e55b07b04d3ba72cf426cb9f68a52021-08-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-96056-6https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), characterized by anomalous sea surface temperature in the central-eastern equatorial Pacific, is a dominant interannual variability, impacting worldwide weather and socioeconomics. The ENSO cycle contains irregularity, in which La Niña often persists for more than two years, called “multi-year La Niña”. Observational records show that multi-year La Niña tends to accompany strong El Niño in the preceding year, but their physical linkage remains unclear. Here we show using reanalysis data that a strong El Niño excites atmospheric conditions that favor the generation of multi-year La Niña in subsequent years. Easterly wind anomalies along the northern off-equatorial Pacific during the decay phase of the strong El Niño are found crucial as they act to discharge ocean heat content (OHC) via an anomalous northward Ekman transport. The negative OHC anomaly is large enough to be restored by a single La Niña and, therefore, causes another La Niña to occur in the second year. Furthermore, analyses of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) climate models support the abovementioned mechanisms and indicate that the occurrence frequencies of multi-year La Niña and strong El Niño are highly correlated.Tomoki IwakiriMasahiro WatanabeNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Tomoki Iwakiri Masahiro Watanabe Mechanisms linking multi-year La Niña with preceding strong El Niño
description	Abstract El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), characterized by anomalous sea surface temperature in the central-eastern equatorial Pacific, is a dominant interannual variability, impacting worldwide weather and socioeconomics. The ENSO cycle contains irregularity, in which La Niña often persists for more than two years, called “multi-year La Niña”. Observational records show that multi-year La Niña tends to accompany strong El Niño in the preceding year, but their physical linkage remains unclear. Here we show using reanalysis data that a strong El Niño excites atmospheric conditions that favor the generation of multi-year La Niña in subsequent years. Easterly wind anomalies along the northern off-equatorial Pacific during the decay phase of the strong El Niño are found crucial as they act to discharge ocean heat content (OHC) via an anomalous northward Ekman transport. The negative OHC anomaly is large enough to be restored by a single La Niña and, therefore, causes another La Niña to occur in the second year. Furthermore, analyses of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) climate models support the abovementioned mechanisms and indicate that the occurrence frequencies of multi-year La Niña and strong El Niño are highly correlated.
format	article
author	Tomoki Iwakiri Masahiro Watanabe
author_facet	Tomoki Iwakiri Masahiro Watanabe
author_sort	Tomoki Iwakiri
title	Mechanisms linking multi-year La Niña with preceding strong El Niño
title_short	Mechanisms linking multi-year La Niña with preceding strong El Niño
title_full	Mechanisms linking multi-year La Niña with preceding strong El Niño
title_fullStr	Mechanisms linking multi-year La Niña with preceding strong El Niño
title_full_unstemmed	Mechanisms linking multi-year La Niña with preceding strong El Niño
title_sort	mechanisms linking multi-year la niña with preceding strong el niño
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/1638e55b07b04d3ba72cf426cb9f68a5
work_keys_str_mv	AT tomokiiwakiri mechanismslinkingmultiyearlaninawithprecedingstrongelnino AT masahirowatanabe mechanismslinkingmultiyearlaninawithprecedingstrongelnino
_version_	1718377310455857152

Mechanisms linking multi-year La Niña with preceding strong El Niño

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