Contrasting the changes in tropical Pacific rainfall variability induced by Eastern and Central Pacific ENSO under global warming
摘要
Under global warming, changes in ENSO-related tropical Pacific rainfall variability (ENSO rainfall) have received increasing attention, yet the difference in projected changes between eastern-Pacific (EP) and central-Pacific (CP) ENSO events remains unclear. This study investigated future changes in EP and CP ENSO rainfall and their underlying mechanisms using outputs from 20 selected models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). Both EP and CP ENSO rainfall are projected to intensify and shift eastward over the central–eastern equatorial Pacific. Notably, EP ENSO rainfall exhibits a stronger enhancement despite a smaller increase in ENSO-related sea surface temperature variability (ENSO SST). While the El Niño–like background SST warming dominates the projected changes in ENSO rainfall, intensified ENSO SST also contributes positively, and vice versa. Importantly, ENSO rainfall exhibits greater sensitivity to increases in EP ENSO SST than in CP ENSO SST, leading to the stronger enhancement of EP ENSO rainfall in the multi-model ensemble. A simplified moisture budget reveals that the changes in ENSO-related vertical circulation variability play a dominant role in the differing changes between EP and CP ENSO rainfall. Furthermore, a moist static energy budget indicates that the more pronounced intensification of EP ENSO-related vertical circulation is mainly attributed to: (1) greater positive horizontal advection of climatological enthalpy by changes in EP ENSO-related wind anomalies, and weaker negative horizontal advection of changes in EP ENSO-related enthalpy anomalies by climatological winds, both caused by different zonal distributions of maximum SST anomalies between EP and CP ENSO, and (2) stronger increases in net energy flux anomalies, driven mainly by more substantial increases in EP ENSO-related downward longwave radiative flux at the surface.