Niño, the abnormal warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, is a well-studied tropical climate phenomenon that occurs every few years. It has major impacts on society and Earth's climate - inducing intense droughts and floods in multiple regions of the globe. Further, scientists have observed that El Niño greatly influences the yearly variations of tropical cyclones (a general term that includes hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones) in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
El Niño develops as the equatorial Pacific Ocean builds up a huge amount of heat underneath the surface and it turns into La Niña when this heat is discharged out of the equatorial region. "This recharge/discharge of heat makes El Niño/La Niña evolve somewhat like a swing," said Jin, lead author of the study.
Furthermore, caution the authors, most climate models predict a slowdown of the tropical atmospheric circulation as the mean global climate warms up. This will result in extra heat stored underneath the Northeastern Pacific and thus greatly increase the probability for this region to experience more frequent intense hurricanes.
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