Impact of Shifting Patterns of Pacific Ocean Warming on North Atlantic Tropical Cyclones

Abstract

El Niño's Cousin: The most energetic and well-known quasi-periodic, air-sea temperature disturbance is ENSO, the mother of the warming of equatorial eastern Pacific surface waters known as El Niño. El Niño, and its cold sister La Niña, can produce dramatic effects on weather across the globe and so it is of great interest and importance to understand it better. Warming in the eastern tropical Pacific is not the only recurring pattern of sea-surface temperature variability in the Pacific, however. Kim et al. (p. 77 ; see the Perspective by Holland ) report that a pattern of extensive warming in the central Pacific also occurs on a quasi-periodic basis, that it has a large effect on atmospheric circulation, and that it is more predictable than El Niño. These central Pacific warming events have become increasingly more frequent in the last few decades, making it even more vital that we understand them.