Mid-Pliocene El Niño/Southern Oscillation Suppressed By Pacific Intertropical Convergence Zone Shift

• Published in: Nature geoscience Vol. 15; no. 9; pp. 726 - 734
• Main Authors: Pontes, Gabriel M, Taschetto, Andrea S, Gupta, Alex Sen, Santoso, Agnus, Wainer, Ilana, Haywood, Alan, Chan, Wing-Le, Ouchi, Ayako Abe, Stepanek, Christian, Lohmann, Gerrit, Hunter, Stephen, Tindall, Julia C, Chandler, Mark A, Sohl, Linda E, Peltier, W Richard, Chandan, Deepak, Kamae, Youichi, Nisancioglu, Kerim H., Zhang, Zhongshi, Contoux, Camille, Tan, Ning, Zhang, Qiong, Otto-Bliesner, Bette, Brady, Esther C, Feng, Ran, Heydt, Anna S. von der, Baatsen, Michiel L. J., Oldeman, Arthur M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Goddard Space Flight Center Springer Nature 2022; Nature Publishing Group UK; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 704/106/35/823; 704/106/413; 704/106/694/1108; 704/106/829/2737; Climate; Climate models; Climate variability; Continental interfaces, environment; Convergence; Convergence zones; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earth System Sciences; El Nino; El Nino phenomena; El Nino-Southern Oscillation event; Geochemistry; Geology; Geophysics/Geodesy; Intercomparison; Intertropical convergence zone; Meteorology And Climatology; Ocean, Atmosphere; Pliocene; Sciences of the Universe; Southern Hemisphere; Southern Oscillation; Surface temperature; Temperature rise; Variability; Atmospheric Dynamics; Palaeoclimate Physical Oceanography; Climate And Earth System Modelling; Palaeoclimate
• ISSN: 1752-0894; 1752-0908; 1752-0908
• DOI: 10.1038/s41561-022-00999-y

The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the dominant driver of year-to-year climate variability in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, impacts climate pattern across the globe. However, the response of the ENSO system to past and potential future temperature increases is not fully understood. Here we investigate ENSO variability in the warmer climate of the mid-Pliocene (~3.0–3.3 Ma), when surface temperatures were ~2–3 °C above modern values, in a large ensemble of climate models—the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project. We show that the ensemble consistently suggests a weakening of ENSO variability, with a mean reduction of 25% (±16%). We further show that shifts in the equatorial Pacific mean state cannot fully explain these changes. Instead, ENSO was suppressed by a series of off-equatorial processes triggered by a northward displacement of the Pacific intertropical convergence zone: weakened convective feedback and intensified Southern Hemisphere circulation, which inhibit various processes that initiate ENSO. The connection between the climatological intertropical convergence zone position and ENSO we find in the past is expected to operate in our warming world with important ramifications for ENSO variability.