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Understanding El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) response to past climate forcings is hindered by conflicting paleoclimate evidence. Records from the eastern Pacific show an intensification of ENSO variability from early to late Holocene, while records from the central Pacific show highly variable ENSO throughout the Holocene without an obvious relation to insolation forcing, which is the main climate driver during this interval. Here, we show via climate model simulations that conflicting Holocene records can be reconciled by considering changes in the relative frequency of the three preferred spatial patterns in which El Niño events occur (Eastern Pacific, Central Pacific, and Coastal) and in the strength of their hydroclimatic impacts. The relationship between ENSO diversity and variance is not only crucial for interpreting paleo-ENSO records and understanding ENSO response to external forcings but can also be used across climate model simulations to help evaluate the realism of ENSO projections in a changing climate.

 

In this study, we investigate the relative contributions of dynamical forcings, particularly the eastern and central‐western Pacific winds, and thermodynamical forcings to the evolution of the 2017 extreme coastal El Niño using observations and modeling experiments. We show that the competing effects of anomalous eastern Pacific westerlies and central‐western Pacific easterlies and their resulting downwelling and upwelling equatorial Kelvin waves are essential for the evolution of the event, together with alongshore anomalous northerlies which suppress coastal upwelling and reduce latent heat release as discussed in previous studies. We find that eastern Pacific zonal wind anomalies are about twice as effective in generating a coastal response as central‐western Pacific anomalies, thus compensating for their usually smaller magnitude. While the 2017 event exemplified these competing effects, they were also found to be important in other coastal and basin‐scale El Niño events, thus contributing to the mechanisms responsible for El Niño diversity.

 

Abstract In July 1929, Dr Friedrich Ritter and Dore Strauch left their spouses and the turmoil of post–World War I Germany for the remote, uninhabited, and rugged volcanic island of Floreana in the Galapagos archipelago. Their dream was to live self-sufficiently in an idyllic tropical setting unspoiled by civilization. Wealthy yachters stopping at Floreana in the early 1930s reported on the couple’s pioneering enterprise to the outside world. The news created a sensation that subsequently attracted other settlers, including a mysterious Viennese faux baroness who quickly sowed discord on the island. Not all the participants in this drama survived though. A prolonged drought gripped the island from 1933 to 1935 leading to food shortages that ultimately claimed the life of Dr. Ritter, a vegetarian who unwittingly ate tainted chicken out of desperation. The bizarre intrigues and struggles to endure on Floreana were chronicled in Dore Strauch’s 1936 memoir Satan Came to Eden and a 2013 Hollywood documentary based on it. A story that has not been told is how an extended period of cold La Niña conditions in 1933–35 led to the drought that caused the food shortages. We use an atmospheric reanalysis and other data sources to describe these cold conditions and how they affected the human drama that unfolded on Floreana Island. The protracted La Niña impacted other parts of the globe and in particular was a major influence on development of the 1930s Dust Bowl in the southern plains of the United States. 

Abstract The large-scale atmospheric circulation of the North Pacific associated with two types of El Niño—the eastern Pacific (EP) and central Pacific (CP)—is studied in relation to Hawaiian winter (December–February) rainfall and temperature. The eastern and central equatorial Pacific undergo active convective heating during EP El Niño winters. The local Hadley circulation is enhanced and an upper-level westerly jet stream of the North Pacific is elongated eastward. Due to the impact of both phenomena, stronger anomalous descending motion, moisture flux divergence anomalies near Hawaii, and reduction of easterly trade winds, which are characteristic of EP winters, are unfavorable for winter rainfall in Hawaii. As a result of this robust signal, dry conditions prevail in Hawaii and the standard deviation of rainfall during EP winters is smaller than the climatology. For CP winters, the maximum equatorial ocean warming is weaker and shifted westward to near the date line. The subtropical jet stream retreats westward relative to EP winters and the anomalously sinking motion near Hawaii is variable and generally weaker. Although the anomalous moisture flux divergence still exists over the subtropical North Pacific, its magnitude is weaker relative to EP winters. Without strong external forcing, rainfall in the Hawaiian Islands during CP winters is close to the long-term mean. The spread of rainfall from one CP event to another is also larger. The near-surface minimum temperature from three stations in Hawaii reveals cooling during EP winters and slight warming during CP winters.