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An international team of scientists — including climate scientist Bronwen Konecky in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis — found that volcanic eruptions can cause the Pacific Walker Circulation to temporarily weaken, inducing El Niño-like conditions. Human activity is affecting this system, according to the authors of the new study published in Nature.

El Nino is an atmospheric-oceanic interaction phenomenon. Its prediction is done using hydrodynamical coupled ocean-atmosphere models and statistical models. The atmospheric component brings out speed and directional changes of the trade winds.

ENSO Blog: How the Pattern of Trends Across the Tropical Pacific Ocean Is Critical for Understanding the Future Climate and Changes in El Niño and La Niña

A new study demonstrates that the naturally occurring warm-to-cold change in the tropical Pacific Ocean is the major cause for the recent intensification in Pacific Walker circulation, the most prominent feature of the tropical Pacific.

 E-Mail IMAGE: Figure 2. Tropical Pacific mean-state change during 2011-2098, after removing the impacts of 13 common biases in the CMIP5 original projections, in (a) SST, (b) convection (omega, upward negative), and... view more  Credit: ©Science China Press A reliable projection of extreme El Niño frequency change in future warmer climate is critical to managing socio-economic activities and human health, strategic policy decisions, environmental and ecosystem managements, and disaster mitigations in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, long-standing common biases in CMIP5 mo...