El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a typical natural oscillation in interannual timescale.
Under global warming, rainfall variability will become stronger over the tropical central-eastern Pacific modulated by ENSO. Surface warming pattern of mean state is the dominant dynamic contributor to enhanced precipitation variability there. But the detailed physical mechanisms remain unclear.
SUN Ning, a PhD student in research group of Prof. ZHOU Tianjun with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, investigated the impact of background sea surface temperature (SST) warming on the ENSO-driven rainfall variability.
They cooperated with the Meteorological Research Institute (MRI), Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and used a high-resolution Atmosphere General Circulation Model (AGCM) developed by MRI/JMA to isolate the influence of mean-state warming.
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