Hyacinth Nnamchi writes on the recent Nature Communications study in The Conversation.

“Because the El Niño patterns in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are considered to be similar, one would expect them to be similarly predictable. This is not so. The Pacific pattern is relatively easy to predict while the Atlantic one is almost completely unpredictable.

And there are additional important differences: the Atlantic events are of smaller magnitude and shorter duration. The reasons for these differences have puzzled climate scientists for decades.”

• Read the entire Conversation article here

 

Reference

Nnamchi, H.C., Latif, M., Keenlyside, N.S. et al. Diabatic heating governs the seasonality of the Atlantic Niño. Nat Commun 12, 376 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20452-1