Jun 18, 2025
Multimodal seas, comprising independent wave systems of distinct origins, produce a complex wave climate with strong spatial variations around the Pacific Islands. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) significantly affects ocean conditions and weathers across the Pacific. In-depth understanding of localized ENSO impacts on ocean waves around islands, like Hawaii, is lacking. Here we analyzed 41-year of high-resolution model wave data to understand how ENSO influences wave patterns across the Hawaiian Islands. The north and west-facing shores exposed to northwest swells experience the largest interannual variation, with increases in amplitude and frequency of large events during El Niño winters. While the trade wind waves show moderate correlation with ENSO, seas mainly driven by local winds, show little variation between El Niño and La Niña phases. These findings underscore the importance of high-resolution wave data in revealing various levels of ENSO influence from shore to shore. Based on the ENSO-wave connection, we develop a semi-empirical model to reconstruct seasonal wave statistics as a function of the ENSO index with promising results for regions experiencing hazardous winter swells. The semi-empirical wave model can predict severe wave conditions seasons in advance to improve coastal safety and help inform decision-making for coastal management.
Mar 26, 2025
Mar 20, 2025
Dec 1, 2024
Nov 1, 2024
Jul 11, 2024
A parsimonious conceptual model provides accurate forecasts of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate phenomenon up to 16-18 months in advance, outperforming global climate models and rivalling the best forecasts using artificial intelligence methods. The model enhances understanding and quantifies the impacts of various ocean climate patterns on ENSO predictability.
Jun 26, 2024
Aug 10, 2022
May 10, 2022
Predicting El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events in advance has profound socio-economic benefits because of ENSO’s impacts on global weather and climate. The basin-wide equatorial Pacific heat content (also known as warm water volume, WWV) and western Pacific WWV (WWVw) are well-known predictors of ENSO events several seasons ahead. In this study, we present an analytical expression of WWV and WWVw lead times to ENSO sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. The analytical solution can explain the observed decadal changes in WWV lead times. We demonstrate that the recent shortened WWV lead time observed after the year 2000 can be largely explained by a decrease in the inherent ENSO periodicity, and second by an increase in the air-sea coupling strength. The latter is associated with an ENSO SST spatial pattern change with more frequent occurrences of Central Pacific El Niño events in recent decades.
Sep 17, 2021