Analyzing 100 different climate simulations over the past 61 years to find how El Niño determines warm or cold winters in Japan.
Analyzing 100 different climate simulations over the past 61 years to find how El Niño determines warm or cold winters in Japan.
The phenomenon known as El Niño can cause abnormal and extreme climate around the world due to it dramatically altering the normal flow of the atmosphere. In Japan, historical data has shown that El Niño years tend to lead to warmer winters. This case was exemplified recently with Japan’s warm 2023-2024 winter season. However, there have also been cases of cold winters in Japan during El Niño years, such as the one recorded in 2014-2015. Yet, it was unclear as to why this was occurring.
Publishing in the Journal of Climate, researchers from Kyushu University’s Research Institute for Applied Mechanics have found that the early onset of El Niño around June leads to warm winter climates in East Asia, while the late onset of El Niño is associated with colder winters. The team hopes that their results can help better model winter climate patterns in East Asia during El Niño years, and lead to more accurate long-term climate predictions.
Read more at Kyushu University
Image: Fig. 1. Sea surface temperature anomaly relative to the average for 1982-2023. Digital rendering of the 2023/24 El Niño in the equatorial Pacific. In June 2023, its patterns were already conspicuous. (Kyushu University/Masahiro Shiozaki)
