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Cited by 170Climate variability and modelsMeteorological Phenomena and SimulationsGeology and Paleoclimatology Research

ENSO Change in Climate Projections: Forced Response or Internal Variability?

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Maher, N., Matei, D., Milinski, S., Marotzke, J.·2018·Geophysical Research Letters
DOI 10.1029/2018gl079764
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Abstract

Two large ensembles are used to quantify the extent to which internal variability can contribute to long‐term changes in El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) characteristics. We diagnose changes that are externally forced and distinguish between multi‐model simulation results that differ by chance and those that differ due to different model physics. The range of simulated ENSO amplitude changes in the large ensemble historical simulations encompasses 90% of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 historical simulations and 80% of moderate (RCP4.5) and strong (RCP8.5) warming scenarios. When considering projected ENSO pattern changes, model differences are also important. We find that ENSO has high internal variability and that single realizations of a model can produce very different results to the ensemble mean response. Due to this variability, 30–40 ensemble members of a single model are needed to robustly compute absolute ENSO variance to a 10% error when 30‐year analysis periods are used.

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  • Sampling ENSO SST variability over relatively short 30-year running periods is subject to a strong influence from decadal climate fluctuations such that stochastic noise and butterfly effect can obscure the impact of greenhouse forcing.

    “However, sampling ENSO SST variability over relatively short 30-year running periods would be subject to a strong influence from decadal climate fluctuations such that stochastic noise and butterfly effect can obscure the impact of greenhouse forcing [14][15][16] .”

    From Increased ENSO sea surface temperature variability under four IPCC emission scenarios (2022) · cites this paper as [14]

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Authors
Maher, N., Matei, D., Milinski, S., & Marotzke, J.
Affiliations
  • Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (DE)
  • Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (DE)
Corresponding author
Maher, N.
ORCID
Venue
Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Published
2018-10-27
Volume
45
Issue
20
ISSN
  • 0094-8276 (ISSN-L)
  • 1944-8007
DOI
10.1029/2018gl079764
OpenAlex
W2897065843
Cited by
170
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 32 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 1
FWCI
9.50
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)
Locations
Geophysical Research Letters (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
  • Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (FKZ:01LP1609A)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
Keywords
ENSO, ENSO variability, natural climate variability, climate change projections, large ensembles, ENSO amplitude, model intercomparison, RCP scenarios, ensemble size

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