Research Highlights

In the future, the Pacific Ocean's temperature cycles could disrupt more than just December fishing. Known collectively as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, the changing seasonal phenomena known as El Niño and La Niña could lead to at least a doubling of extreme droughts and floods in California later this century.

Earth’s surface air temperature has significantly increased over the 20th century, although this overall global warming has been punctuated by periods of weaker/stalled warming or even cooling. Research suggests shifts in the circulation of the Pacific Ocean and atmosphere have played a key role in the present hiatus’ development.

In early January 2014, an Arctic air outbreak brought extreme cold and heavy snowfall to central and eastern North America, causing widespread disruption and monetary losses. However, new research using state-of-the-art climate model simulations finds that the risk of North American daily cold extremes decreases in the future.

Over the coming decades, the tropical Pacific is likely to experience more extreme sea level swings on timescales of several years. The culprit is a change in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and its characteristic Pacific wind response, according to a new study using CMIP5 climate change projections.

Arid and semi-arid regions are projected to experience the most adverse impacts of climate change, and intensifying drought and precipitation extremes are found in the observational record and current global climate projections of the IPCC report.