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Climate and Ocean -
Variability, Predictability, and Change

A member of the CLIVAR Tropical Basin Interaction Research Foci (TBI RF) recently published a paper that highlights the importance of coupled dynamics between the tropical Atlantic and Indian Oceans in shaping and intensifying super El Niño events. Their study, which utilizes a series of global climate model experiments, demonstrates that super El Niño events are driven by a complex interaction among the tropical Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. It was observed that while individual effects were weaker and more uncertain, the combined effects were significantly stronger and more reliable. Specifically, the joint influence of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans was found to more effectively drive tropical Pacific warming. This process is linked to the nonlinear characteristics of convective sensitivity: when both oceans impact the Pacific simultaneously, they more effectively promote the eastward expansion of the Pacific warm pool, enhancing tropical Pacific convection and strengthening the Bjerknes feedback loop, ultimately leading to the formation of a super El Niño event.