Comparison of the 2015/16 El Niño with the two previous strongest events

Abstract

The 2015/16 El Niño is compared with the two previous strongest events, the 1982/83 and 1997/98 El Niño. The 2015/16 winter features a basin warming in the Indian Ocean, a negative sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly shifted to the north in the western Pacific Ocean in addition to a positive SST anomaly shifted to the west in the eastern Pacific Ocean. These SST distributions lead to suppressed convection in the Maritime Continent, and to a weakened Hadley circulation in the western Pacific Ocean. The eastern Asian monsoon in the 2015/16 winter was also weakened due to the dominance of the western Pacific (WP) pattern. On the other hand, the third and fourth centers of action of Pacific/North American (PNA) pattern in the 2015/16 case are obscure. This may be due to weak divergence in the eastern Pacific Ocean.