El Niño Diversity Across Boreal Spring Predictability Barrier

Bin Wang; Xiao Luo; Weiyi Sun; Young Min Yang; Jian Liu

doi:10.1029/2020GL087354

El Niño Diversity Across Boreal Spring Predictability Barrier

Bin Wang
, Xiao Luo
, Weiyi Sun
, Young Min Yang
, Jian Liu

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

El Niño exerts widespread hydroclimate impacts during boreal summer. However, the current prediction of El Niño across boreal spring has the most severe forecast errors, partially due to the lack of understanding diversified El Niño onset and decay. Here we show, through nonlinear k-means cluster analysis of evolutions of 40 El Niño events since 1870, El Niño exhibits complex and diverse flavors in its onset and decay across boreal spring predictability barrier. We detected three types of El Niño onset and three types of decay. Each type exhibits distinct coupled dynamics, precursors, and hydroclimate impacts. The results guide the prediction of different types of El Niño transition amid spring predictability barrier and global land precipitation during early and late boreal summer. The new classification offers a metric to evaluate performances of climate models and to project future change of El Niño properties and its predictability.

Original language	English
Article number	e2020GL087354
Journal	Geophysical Research Letters
Volume	47
Issue number	13
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087354
State	Published - Jul 16 2020
Externally published	Yes

Funding

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation (Climate Dynamics Division) award # AGS-1540783 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 41420104002), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2016YFA0600401). This paper is the IPRC publication #1447, SOEST publication # 10988, and ESMC publication #311. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation (Climate Dynamics Division) award # AGS‐1540783 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 41420104002), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2016YFA0600401). This paper is the IPRC publication #1447, SOEST publication # 10988, and ESMC publication #311.

Keywords

El Niño diversity
El Niño impact
El Niño precursors
El Niño transition
k-means cluster analysis
spring predictability barrier

Access to Document

10.1029/2020GL087354

Cite this

@article{485b8c18ca864265bc6819d99e52aac1,

title = "El Ni{\~n}o Diversity Across Boreal Spring Predictability Barrier",

abstract = "El Ni{\~n}o exerts widespread hydroclimate impacts during boreal summer. However, the current prediction of El Ni{\~n}o across boreal spring has the most severe forecast errors, partially due to the lack of understanding diversified El Ni{\~n}o onset and decay. Here we show, through nonlinear k-means cluster analysis of evolutions of 40 El Ni{\~n}o events since 1870, El Ni{\~n}o exhibits complex and diverse flavors in its onset and decay across boreal spring predictability barrier. We detected three types of El Ni{\~n}o onset and three types of decay. Each type exhibits distinct coupled dynamics, precursors, and hydroclimate impacts. The results guide the prediction of different types of El Ni{\~n}o transition amid spring predictability barrier and global land precipitation during early and late boreal summer. The new classification offers a metric to evaluate performances of climate models and to project future change of El Ni{\~n}o properties and its predictability.",

keywords = "El Ni{\~n}o diversity, El Ni{\~n}o impact, El Ni{\~n}o precursors, El Ni{\~n}o transition, k-means cluster analysis, spring predictability barrier",

author = "Bin Wang and Xiao Luo and Weiyi Sun and Yang, \{Young Min\} and Jian Liu",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright}2020. The Authors.",

year = "2020",

month = jul,

day = "16",

doi = "10.1029/2020GL087354",

language = "English",

volume = "47",

journal = "Geophysical Research Letters",

issn = "0094-8276",

publisher = "Wiley Open Access",

number = "13",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - El Niño Diversity Across Boreal Spring Predictability Barrier

AU - Wang, Bin

AU - Luo, Xiao

AU - Sun, Weiyi

AU - Yang, Young Min

AU - Liu, Jian

PY - 2020/7/16

Y1 - 2020/7/16

N2 - El Niño exerts widespread hydroclimate impacts during boreal summer. However, the current prediction of El Niño across boreal spring has the most severe forecast errors, partially due to the lack of understanding diversified El Niño onset and decay. Here we show, through nonlinear k-means cluster analysis of evolutions of 40 El Niño events since 1870, El Niño exhibits complex and diverse flavors in its onset and decay across boreal spring predictability barrier. We detected three types of El Niño onset and three types of decay. Each type exhibits distinct coupled dynamics, precursors, and hydroclimate impacts. The results guide the prediction of different types of El Niño transition amid spring predictability barrier and global land precipitation during early and late boreal summer. The new classification offers a metric to evaluate performances of climate models and to project future change of El Niño properties and its predictability.

AB - El Niño exerts widespread hydroclimate impacts during boreal summer. However, the current prediction of El Niño across boreal spring has the most severe forecast errors, partially due to the lack of understanding diversified El Niño onset and decay. Here we show, through nonlinear k-means cluster analysis of evolutions of 40 El Niño events since 1870, El Niño exhibits complex and diverse flavors in its onset and decay across boreal spring predictability barrier. We detected three types of El Niño onset and three types of decay. Each type exhibits distinct coupled dynamics, precursors, and hydroclimate impacts. The results guide the prediction of different types of El Niño transition amid spring predictability barrier and global land precipitation during early and late boreal summer. The new classification offers a metric to evaluate performances of climate models and to project future change of El Niño properties and its predictability.

KW - El Niño diversity

KW - El Niño impact

KW - El Niño precursors

KW - El Niño transition

KW - k-means cluster analysis

KW - spring predictability barrier

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85089180204

U2 - 10.1029/2020GL087354

DO - 10.1029/2020GL087354

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85089180204

SN - 0094-8276

VL - 47

JO - Geophysical Research Letters

JF - Geophysical Research Letters

IS - 13

M1 - e2020GL087354

ER -

El Niño Diversity Across Boreal Spring Predictability Barrier

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this