A climate change signal in the tropical Pacific emerges from decadal variability.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39333161.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-52731-6 and PMC identifier 11437070.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC-ND.
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Abstract
The eastern tropical Pacific has defied the global warming trend. There has been a debate about whether this observed trend is forced or natural (i.e., the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation; IPO) and this study shows that there are two patterns, one that oscillates along with the IPO, and one that is emerging since the mid-1950s, herein called the Pacific Climate Change (PCC) pattern. Here we show these have distinctive and distinguishable atmosphere-ocean signatures. While the IPO features a meridionally broad wedge-shaped SST pattern, the PCC pattern is marked by a narrow equatorial cooling band. These different SST patterns are related to distinct wind-driven ocean dynamical processes. We further show that the recent trends during the satellite era are a combination of IPO and PCC. Our findings set a path to distinguish climate change signals from internal variability through the underlying dynamics of each.