PC31A:
El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diversity in a Changing Climate I


Session ID#: 7567

Session Description:
ENSO events differ in amplitude, spatial pattern, and temporal evolution. These event-to-event variations are difficult to predict and can result in markedly different global impacts. Moreover, tropical Pacific interannual variability appears to undergo decadal/interdecadal variations, which may obscure the detection of possible ENSO changes associated with global warming. In this session we welcome contributions that target the US CLIVAR goal of advancing our understanding of the origin, dynamics, impacts, and predictability of all aspects of ENSO diversity in a changing climate, using observations, theory, model simulations, as well as paleoclimate reconstructions. The unusual evolution of the 2014-2015 El Niño is a recent example of this diversity, and studies aimed at elucidating the physical processes underlying that event are strongly encouraged. We also welcome studies that clarify how model biases contribute to the diversity of ENSO representation among model simulations of past, present, and future climates, as well as research into how to reduce or otherwise cope with those biases.
Primary Chair:  Antonietta Capotondi, NOAA /ESRL, Physical Sciences Division, Boulder, CO, United States; University of Colorado, CIRES, Boulder, CO, United States
Chairs:  Michael J McPhaden, NOAA Seattle, Seattle, WA, United States and Andrew Thorne Wittenberg, NOAA Princeton, Princeton, NJ, United States
Moderators:  Andrew Thorne Wittenberg, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States, Antonietta Capotondi, NOAA /ESRL, Physical Sciences Division, Boulder, CO, United States and Michael J McPhaden, NOAA Seattle, Seattle, WA, United States
Student Paper Review Liaisons:  Antonietta Capotondi, NOAA /ESRL, Physical Sciences Division, Boulder, CO, United States and Andrew Thorne Wittenberg, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, United States
Index Terms:

1616 Climate variability [GLOBAL CHANGE]
4522 ENSO [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
Co-Sponsor(s):
  • A - Air-sea Interactions and Upper Ocean Processes
  • HI - Human Use and Impacts
  • PO - Physical Oceanography/Ocean Circulation
  • TE - Tropical and Equatorial Environments

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Underwater glider observations of the ongoing El Niño (92061)
Daniel L Rudnick1, Breck Owens2, Shaun Johnston1 and Kristopher Karnauskas3, (1)Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, United States, (2)Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, MA, United States, (3)Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Geology & Geophysics, woods hole, MA, United States
The seasonal march in upper-ocean temperature, salinity, steric height and sea surface height in the equatorial Pacific (91635)
Florent Gasparin, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego, United States and Dean H Roemmich, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego, CA, United States
Observations of Surface Mixed Layer Variability in the Eastern South Pacific along the coast of Ecuador (91667)
Maria Marin, University of New Hampshire, ESCI, Durham, NH, United States and Thomas Charles Lippmann, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States
The Role of Westerly and Easterly Wind Bursts in El Niño Diversity: Contrasting Warm Events of 2014 and 2015 (92017)
Alexey V Fedorov and Shineng Hu, Yale University, Geology and Geophysics, New Haven, CT, United States
Precursors of ENSO Events from 27 Years of Satellite Data (88840)
Antonietta Capotondi, NOAA /ESRL, Physical Sciences Division, Boulder, CO, United States; University of Colorado, CIRES, Boulder, CO, United States and Lucrezia Ricciardulli, Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, CA, United States
Deterministic and Stochastic Aspects of El Niño’s Impact on Atlantic Tropical Cyclones (93076)
Christina M Patricola, Ping Chang and Ramalingam Saravanan, Texas A & M University College Station, College Station, TX, United States
On the Collapse of the Surface Easterly Wind in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific in the 2015 El Nino (89303)
David Halpern, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States