Identifying the types of major El Niño events since 1870

Abstract

This study develops a pattern correlation method to determine the type of major El Niño events since 1870 from a reconstructed sea surface temperature dataset. Different from other identification methods, this method allows an El Niño event to be of the Central-Pacific (CP) type, the Eastern-Pacific (EP) type, or the Mixed type (i.e. the both types coexist). Application of this method to the 39 major El Niño events identified by the Ocean Niño Index during the period 1870-2010 results in 8 events that are categorized to be of the EP type, 16 of the CP type, and 15 of Mixed type. Before the 1910s, the El Niño events are mostly of the EP type, but are mostly the CP type after 2000, while in between both types occurred. The consistencies and inconsistencies between the El Niño types identified by this method and other three methods, which have been proposed recently for El Niño-type classification, are examined and discussed. All four methods consistently identify the El Niño events occurring in the following years to be of the EP

Asymmetry of the winter extra-tropical teleconnections in the Northern Hemisphere associated with two types of ENSO

“…Thus, none of the two documents are consensus for the selection of the EP and CP ENSO. There always exist one or two inconsistent samples among the different documents when different separating methods are employed Kao and Yu 2009;Kug et al 2009;Ren and Jin 2011;Yu and Kim 2013). Nevertheless, similar results of the robust distinct impacts of EP and CP ENSO are obtained among different documents (e.g.…”

Towards optimal observational array for dealing with challenges of El Niño-Southern Oscillation predictions due to diversities of El Niño

“…Previous studies used three different approaches to identify CP-and EP-El Niño events Ren and Jin 2011;Yu and Kim 2013;Zheng and Yu 2017), which made the identified EP-and CP-El Niño cases somewhat different in these studies. Therefore, a consensus of the El Niño cases identified by the previous studies is often adopted (Yu and Kim 2013;Zheng and Yu 2017). Referring to this, three of the nine El Niño events (i.e.…”

Variation in El Niño Circulation Patterns and Winter Storm Impacts in Southern California.

“…Central Pacific (CP), or Mixed (M), follows that of Yu and Kim (2013), who identified seven EP, sixteen CP, and fifteen mixed episodes between 1870 and 2010. The El Niño episode of 2015-2016 initially showed CP circulation but evolved into a typical EP episode, and is characterized as mixed for the purposes of this discussion.…”

“…The "canonical" version involves an increase in sea surface temperature originating in the Eastern Pacific, but in some cases, warming seems to originate in the Central Pacific. This circulation pattern has been called Warm Pool El Niño (Kug et al, 2009), El Niño Modoki , or the Central Pacific (CP) El Niño (Yu and Kim, 2013). There appears to be little consensus on how different modes of El Niño may affect regional atmospheric circulation.…”