Speaker: Alexey Federov (Yale)
Title: El Nino and global warming: from multi-year prediction to climate change projections
Abstract: The response of the tropical Pacific mean state and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) to rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations remains highly uncertain. For example, the projected development of enhanced warming in the eastern equatorial Pacific, along with the associated weakening of the Walker circulation, contrasts with the strengthening of the Walker circulation observed over the past 30–40 years. Here, I discuss the key mechanisms shaping ongoing and future changes in the tropical Pacific across different timescales, as well as the projected strengthening of ENSO across a wide range of realistic and idealized global warming experiments and climate models. Finally, I discuss the current state of El Niño prediction, including forecasts for the warm event expected later this year.