Supercharged El Niño Could Speed Up Southern Ocean Warming

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https://eos.org/articles/supercharged-el-nino-could-speed-up-southern-ocean-warming

By Erin Martin-Jones, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: When easterly winds weaken over the tropical Pacific Ocean, a string of weather extremes unfolds all over the globe, with impacts ranging from flooding in South American deserts to reduced monsoon rains in Indonesia and India. This shift in wind and water currents, known as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), will become more intense if global temperatures continue to rise. Research now has revealed that projected changes to this global weather maker will also influence the remote Southern Ocean. Using the latest climate models, scientists have shown that enhanced El Niño events will likely speed the heating of deep-ocean waters around Antarctica, with the potential for accelerated melting of the continent’s land-held ice. Scientists are concerned about how stronger El Niño events could affect the Antarctic because of the potential for sea level rise. The Antarctic Ice Sheet holds about 60% of the world’s freshwater—enough to raise global sea levels by around 70 meters. ...In a study published in Nature Climate Change, Cai and his colleagues used climate models to make the first assessments of how ENSO intensification could affect Antarctic climate....

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