On the low western Pacific sea levels observed  prior to strong East Pacific El Niños

Webb, David J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/os-17-1585-2021

Articles | Volume 17, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-17-1585-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-17-1585-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 6

Research article

|

08 Nov 2021

Research article |

| 08 Nov 2021

On the low western Pacific sea levels observed prior to strong East Pacific El Niños

David J. Webb

Data sets

NEMO 1/12 degree global ocean model archive A. C. Coward http://gws-access.ceda.ac.uk/public/nemo/runs/ORCA0083-N06/means

Model code and software

NEMO/XIOS 2.5 NEMO Consortium https://forge.ipsl.jussieu.fr/nemo/svn/NEMO/releases/r4.0/r4.0.6

Moma D. J. Webb https://github.com/djwebb/moma

NEMO ocean engine R. Bourdallé-Badie, M. Bell, J. Chanut, E. Clementi, A. Coward, M. Drudi, C. Éthé, D. Iovino, D. Lea, C. Lévy, G. Madec, N. Martin, S. Masson, P. Mathiot, S. Mocavero, S. Müller, G. Nurser, G. Samson, and D. Storkey https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1464816

Short summary

Research on strong El Niños has shown that they may be a result of a stronger-than-normal North Equatorial Counter Current, itself triggered by lower-than-normal sea levels that develop early in the year. A numerical model study of the 1981–1982 El Niño shows that the low sea levels are due to local winds in the west Pacific, and this is shown also to be true for the 1997–1998 and 2015–2016 El Niños. As a result, we now have a much better understanding of the mechanism causing strong El Niños.