Rapid communication: Nonlinear sensitivity of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation across climate states

Pontes, Gabriel M.; da Silva Dias, Pedro L.; Menviel, Laurie

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-1079-2025

Articles | Volume 21, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-1079-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-1079-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 6

Rapid communication

|

25 Jun 2025

Rapid communication |

| 25 Jun 2025

Rapid communication: Nonlinear sensitivity of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation across climate states

Gabriel M. Pontes, Pedro L. da Silva Dias, and Laurie Menviel

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-1079-2025-supplement

Data sets

Dataset for "Rapid Communication: Nonlinear sensitivity of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation across climate states" Gabriel Pontes https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15686134

ESGF MetaGrid Earth System Grid Federation https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/

Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Monthly Analysis Product NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.gpcp.html

Hadley Centre Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperature data set (HadISST) Nick Rayner https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/

Short summary

El Niño events are the main drivers of year-to-year climate variability. Understanding how El Niño activity is affected by different climate states is of great relevance to agriculture, water, ecosystem, and climate risk management. Through analysis of past and future climate simulations, we show that the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) sensitivity to mean state changes is nonlinear and, to some extent, shaped by atmospheric CO₂ levels.