Scientists discover ENSO link to floods and droughts across the planet

ENSO

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We’re told in a summary of the article: ‘Scientists tracking Earth’s water from space discovered that El Niño and La Niña are synchronizing floods and droughts across continents.’ Discover may be too strong a word here, as some of this was already known. What might be of interest is: ‘the study also identified a broader shift in global water behavior around 2011-2012.’ But the researchers admit that the brevity of the satellite record prevents proper analysis of possible reasons for such a shift, or shifts. Aa an Eos article says: ‘However, the approximately 22-year satellite record is still too short to fully identify long-term drivers, which limits the ability to determine whether global extremes are increasing or decreasing.’ So much for strident claims elsewhere of more climate extremes, and increases in their ‘extremity’. EOS concludes: ‘Overall, the study highlights the need to extend satellite observations to capture multi-decadal climate variability and better distinguish natural fluctuations from human-induced changes.’ Of course they’re not offering any clues as to how such distinctions could be made in the absence of two parallel real-life Earth climates, one with and one without humans and their machines. If they’re thinking of climate models it won’t work, as a model can never be an accurate version of the real climate system. There’s also the question of first cause i.e. where does the O (Oscillation) in ENSO come from?
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Droughts and floods can disrupt daily life, damage ecosystems, and strain local and global economies, says ScienceDaily.

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin set out to better understand these water extremes by studying how they develop and spread across the planet. Their work points to a powerful climate force that links distant regions in surprising ways.

A new study published in AGU Advances shows that during the past 20 years, ENSO, a recurring climate pattern in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that includes El Niño and La Niña, has played the leading role in driving extreme changes in total water storage worldwide.

The researchers also found that ENSO tends to line up these extremes so that different continents experience unusually wet or dry conditions at the same time.

Why Synchronized Extremes Matter
According to study co-author Bridget Scanlon, a research professor at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences, understanding these global patterns has real-world consequences.

“Looking at the global scale, we can identify what areas are simultaneously wet or simultaneously dry,” Scanlon said. “And that of course affects water availability, food production, food trade — all of these global things.”

When multiple regions face water shortages or excesses at once, the impacts can ripple through agriculture, trade, and humanitarian planning.
. . .
Real-World Examples Across Continents
The researchers pointed to several striking cases. During the mid-2000s, El Niño coincided with severe dryness in South Africa. Another El Niño event was linked to drought in the Amazon during 2015-2016.

By contrast, La Niña in 2010-2011 brought exceptionally wet conditions to Australia, southeast Brazil, and South Africa.

Beyond individual events, the study also identified a broader shift in global water behavior around 2011-2012. Before 2011, unusually wet conditions were more common worldwide. After 2012, dry extremes began to dominate.

The researchers attribute this change to a long-lasting climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean that influences how ENSO affects global water.

Full article here.