Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

ENSO - Impact on Maximum Temperature Extremes

In this article the authors¹ studied the impact on temperature extremes by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in observations and coupled climate simulations. The authors¹ used a gridded dataset of climate extremes indices, HadEX2, that was newly developed, which showed marked contrasts in seasonal composites of the monthly maximum values of daily maximum temperature during the phases of ENSO, both cold and warm. During strong La Niña events extreme maximum temperatures over Australia, Southern Asia, South Africa and Canada are significantly cooler when compared to El Niño events and over southern South America and the contiguous United States they are significantly warmer. In this study 2 climate models that employed very different simulations of ENSO were contrasted for their ability to capture these relationships. The authors¹ found that some aspects of the observed patterns were captured by both models, but they noted that the fidelity of the ENSO simulation appeared to be crucial for simulating the relationships of the extreme maximum temperatures, both magnitude and sign. The authors¹ also investigated the impact on these patterns by climate change in the future.

Sources & Further reading

1. Arblaster, Julie M., and Lisa V. Alexander. "The Impact of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation on Maximum Temperature Extremes." Geophysical Research Letters 39, no. 20 (2012): n/a-n/a.