The cause of the fragile relationship between the Pacific El Niño and the Atlantic Niño

El Ni?o, the most prominent climate fluctuation at seasonal-to-interannual timescales, has long been known to have a remote impact on climate variability in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, but a robust influence is found only in the northern tropical Atlantic region. Fluctuations in the equatorial Atlantic are dominated by the Atlantic Ni?o, a phenomenon analogous to El Ni?o, characterized by irregular episodes of anomalous warming during the boreal summer. The Atlantic Ni?o strongly affects seasonal climate prediction in African countries bordering the Gulf of Guinea. The relationship between El Ni?o and the Atlantic Ni?o is ambiguous and inconsistent. Here we combine observational and modelling analysis to show that the fragile relationship is a result of destructive interference between atmospheric and oceanic processes in response to El Ni?o. The net effect of El Ni?o on the Atlantic Ni?o depends not only on the atmospheric response that propagates the El Ni?o signal to the tropical Atlantic, but also on a dynamic ocean-atmosphere interaction in the equatorial Atlantic that works against the atmospheric response. These results emphasize the importance of having an improved ocean-observing system in the tropical Atlantic, because our ability to predict the Atlantic Ni?o will depend not only on our knowledge of conditions in the tropical Pacific, but also on an accurate estimate of the state of the upper ocean in the equatorial Atlantic.     

Millennial and orbital variations of El Niño/Southern Oscillation and high-latitude climate in the last glacial period

The El Ni?o/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon is believed to have operated continuously over the last glacial-interglacial cycle. ENSO variability has been suggested to be linked to millennial-scale oscillations in North Atlantic climate during that time, but the proposals disagree on whether increased frequency of El Ni?o events, the warm phase of ENSO, was linked to North Atlantic warm or cold periods. Here we present a high-resolution record of surface moisture, based on the degree of peat humification and the ratio of sedges to grass, from northern Queensland, Australia, covering the past 45,000 yr. We observe millennial-scale dry periods, indicating periods of frequent El Ni?o events (summer precipitation declines in El Ni?o years in northeastern Australia). We find that these dry periods are correlated to the Dansgaard-Oeschger events--millennial-scale warm events in the North Atlantic climate record--although no direct atmospheric connection from the North Atlantic to our site can be invoked. Additionally, we find climatic cycles at a semiprecessional timescale (approximately 11,900 yr). We suggest that climate variations in the tropical Pacific Ocean on millennial as well as orbital timescales, which determined precipitation in northeastern Australia, also exerted an influence on North Atlantic climate through atmospheric and oceanic teleconnections.     

Extreme climate of the global troposphere and stratosphere in 1940-42 related to El Niño

Although the El Ni?o/Southern Oscillation phenomenon is the most prominent mode of climate variability and affects weather and climate in large parts of the world, its effects on Europe and the high-latitude stratosphere are controversial. Using historical observations and reconstruction techniques, we analyse the anomalous state of the troposphere and stratosphere in the Northern Hemisphere from 1940 to 1942 that occurred during a strong and long-lasting El Ni?o event. Exceptionally low surface temperatures in Europe and the north Pacific Ocean coincided with high temperatures in Alaska. In the lower stratosphere, our reconstructions show high temperatures over northern Eurasia and the north Pacific Ocean, and a weak polar vortex. In addition, there is observational evidence for frequent stratospheric warmings and high column ozone at Arctic and mid-latitude sites. We compare our historical data for the period 1940-42 with more recent data and a 650-year climate model simulation. We conclude that the observed anomalies constitute a recurring extreme state of the global troposphere-stratosphere system in northern winter that is related to strong El Ni?o events.     

Proxy evidence for an El Niño-like response to volcanic forcing

Past studies have suggested a statistical connection between explosive volcanic eruptions and subsequent El Ni?o climate events. This connection, however, has remained controversial. Here we present support for a response of the El Ni?o/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon to forcing from explosive volcanism by using two different palaeoclimate reconstructions of El Ni?o activity and two independent, proxy-based chronologies of explosive volcanic activity from ad 1649 to the present. We demonstrate a significant, multi-year, El Ni?o-like response to explosive tropical volcanic forcing over the past several centuries. The results imply roughly a doubling of the probability of an El Ni?o event occurring in the winter following a volcanic eruption. Our empirical findings shed light on how the tropical Pacific ocean-atmosphere system may respond to exogenous (both natural and anthropogenic) radiative forcing.     

厄尔尼诺/拉尼娜事件对山东省气候的影响

基于1961年以来发生的厄尔尼诺/拉尼娜事件和山东省气候资料,分析了1961年来山东省气候变化特点,并对降水量、气温、干旱灾害事件与厄尔尼诺/拉尼娜事件之间的关系进行统计分析,初步揭示了厄尔尼诺/拉尼娜事件对山东省气候的影响.结果表明:1961年以来山东省气温呈现明显波动增高趋势,年降水量呈现明显波动减少变化趋势,但是波动程度有差别;厄尔尼诺/拉尼娜事件对山东省气温、降水和干旱灾害影响显著,厄尔尼诺年降水减少,降水量低于正常年降水量87.11mm,发生干旱灾害的可能性较大,一般给山东省工农业生产带来不利影响;拉尼娜年降水增多,高于正常年降水量53.37mm,气温仅比正常年份平均气温低0.1℃,发生干旱灾害事件的可能性减少,通常给山东省工农业生产带来正面影响.     

基于LSTM深度学习的ENSO预测及其春季预报障碍研究

利用长短期记忆网络(LSTM)深度学习算法构建一个热带太平洋Nino3.4指数预测模型, 并分析模型的季节预报误差。结果表明, LSTM模型能够较好地预测厄尔尼诺事件的变化趋势, 但针对不同类型的厄尔尼诺事件有不同的表现。对于1997/1998和 2015/2016强东部型厄尔尼诺事件, 该模型能较准确地预测事件的趋势和峰值, 距平相关系数(ACC)达到0.93以上。但是, 对于 1991/1992和2002/2003弱中部型厄尔尼诺事件, 在峰值预测方面表现不好。在厄尔尼诺增长期,预报误差的季节增长率最大值皆处于4—6月,存在明显的春季预报障碍(SPB)现象。在衰减期,同类型事件的季节增长率最大值分布相似:弱中部型厄尔尼诺事件的最大值皆处于春季,存在明显的SPB现象;强东部型厄尔尼诺事件的最大值分散在其他季度,不存在SPB现象。个体事件间存在一定的差异,可能与事件的特征(如事件类型和强度)有关。     

El Niño/Southern Oscillation and tropical Pacific climate during the last millennium

Any assessment of future climate change requires knowledge of the full range of natural variability in the El Ni?o/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. Here we splice together fossil-coral oxygen isotopic records from Palmyra Island in the tropical Pacific Ocean to provide 30-150-year windows of tropical Pacific climate variability within the last 1,100 years. The records indicate mean climate conditions in the central tropical Pacific ranging from relatively cool and dry during the tenth century to increasingly warmer and wetter climate in the twentieth century. But the corals also document a broad range of ENSO behaviour that correlates poorly with these estimates of mean climate. The most intense ENSO activity within the reconstruction occurred during the mid-seventeenth century. Taken together, the coral data imply that the majority of ENSO variability over the last millennium may have arisen from dynamics internal to the ENSO system itself.     

Predictability of El Niño over the past 148 years

Forecasts of El Ni?o climate events are routinely provided and distributed, but the limits of El Ni?o predictability are still the subject of debate. Some recent studies suggest that the predictability is largely limited by the effects of high-frequency atmospheric 'noise', whereas others emphasize limitations arising from the growth of initial errors in model simulations. Here we present retrospective forecasts of the interannual climate fluctuations in the tropical Pacific Ocean for the period 1857 to 2003, using a coupled ocean-atmosphere model. The model successfully predicts all prominent El Ni?o events within this period at lead times of up to two years. Our analysis suggests that the evolution of El Ni?o is controlled to a larger degree by self-sustaining internal dynamics than by stochastic forcing. Model-based prediction of El Ni?o therefore depends more on the initial conditions than on unpredictable atmospheric noise. We conclude that throughout the past century, El Ni?o has been more predictable than previously envisaged.     

Civil conflicts are associated with the global climate

It has been proposed that changes in global climate have been responsible for episodes of widespread violence and even the collapse of civilizations. Yet previous studies have not shown that violence can be attributed to the global climate, only that random weather events might be correlated with conflict in some cases. Here we directly associate planetary-scale climate changes with global patterns of civil conflict by examining the dominant interannual mode of the modern climate, the El Ni?o/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Historians have argued that ENSO may have driven global patterns of civil conflict in the distant past, a hypothesis that we extend to the modern era and test quantitatively. Using data from 1950 to 2004, we show that the probability of new civil conflicts arising throughout the tropics doubles during El Ni?o years relative to La Ni?a years. This result, which indicates that ENSO may have had a role in 21% of all civil conflicts since 1950, is the first demonstration that the stability of modern societies relates strongly to the global climate.     

《红楼梦》中“谈话蕴含”现象浅析

对“谈话蕴含”现象的研究实际上就是要搞清楚人们究竟运用了哪些规则和手段来解释自己违背谈话原则的合理性。此文以内外辨析的方式对《红楼梦》中宝玉和黛玉,黛玉和宝钗等几组人物的对话进行分析,主要从说话人和听话人对话语的不同理解,以及当话语中含有“言外之意”和“弦外之音”时来阐释《红楼梦》中的“谈话蕴含”现象。