Climate model suggests extreme El Niño tipping point could be reached if global warming continues
A trio of physicists and oceanologists, two with the University of Cologne's Institute of Geophysics and Meteorology and the third with the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel, all in Germany, has found via the CESM1 climate model that an extreme El Niño tipping point could be reached in the coming decades under current emissions.
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Prior research has shown that such extreme events used to occur approximately eight or nine times per century. Some in the field have suggested that rising global temperatures could make them happen more often.
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In their work, the model showed that if temperatures keep rising past 2100 to as much as 3.7°C, a tipping point could be reached where virtually all ENSO events will be extreme. Such a tipping point, they note, suggests that even if mankind was somehow able to stop climate change, it would take centuries for the weather to return to what they describe as "normal."
The model also showed that extreme ENSO events would happen more often, as well, perhaps as often as every four years. It also showed changes, such as the Gulf Stream dropping farther south, leading to far less rain in Canada and northern parts of the U.S., and more rain in southern parts of the U.S.
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