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ENSO Diversity Working Group

The US CLIVAR ENSO Diversity Working Group was formed in 2012 to clarify, coordinate and synthesize research to achieve a better understanding of ENSO diversity, including surface and sub-surface characteristics, tropical-extratropical teleconnections, physical mechanisms predictability, and relationship with climate change. The WG concluded their activities in 2015.

ENSO Diversity WG Scientific Objectives

  • Examine the range of ENSO “flavors” with focus upon longitudinal variations of warming, identify basic surface and subsurface characteristics that are robust among different datasets, assess the existence of possible, and distinct precursors to the different flavors, and create a framework that will allow the community to better understand how the interplay of different   oceanic, atmospheric, and coupled processes drive different ENSO flavors and impact their predictability. 
  • Examine the performance of the CMIP5 archive in reproducing the best observational estimate of ENSO diversity, and assess its projected changes.

During its first year, the WG is charged with establishing the ability of data sets to reveal a range of ENSO types, and the ability of models to simulate the types revealed.  A community workshop was held in February 2013 to review the representation of ENSO diversity in observational data sets, model analyses of ENSO diversity and basic characteristics of different ENSO types and extra-tropical influences on ENSO diversity, and remote impacts of different ENSO flavors.

 

ENSO Diversity Working Group
Antonietta Capotondi, co-chair University of Colorado/NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
Ben Kirtman, co-chair University of Miami
Pascale Braconnot Institut Pierre Simon Laplace
Julia Cole University of Arizona
Boris Dewitte

LEGOS (Laboratoire d'Etude en Geophysique et Oceanographie Spatiale)

Emanuele Di Lorenzo Georgia Institute of Technology
Ben Giese Texas A&M University
Eric Guilyardi Institut Pierre Simon Laplace
David Halpern NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Fei-Fei Jin University of Hawaii
Kristopher Karnauskas Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Tong (Tony) Lee California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Michael McPhaden NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Matthew Newman University of Colorado/NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
Niklas Schneider University of Hawaii
Andrew Wittenberg NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
Yan Xue NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction
Sang-Wook Yeh Hanyang University
Jin-Yi Yu University of California, Irvine