Changes in ENSO and associated overturning circulations from enhanced greenhouse gases by the end of the 20th century

With data from 12 coupled models in the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR4), climate under year 2000 greenhouse gas (GHG) + aerosol forcing was compared with climate under pre-industrial conditions. In the tropical Pacific, the warming in the mean sea surface temperatures (SST) was found to have an El Niño-like pattern, while both the equatorial zonal overturning circulation and the meridional overturning circulation weakened under increased GHG forcing. For the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the asymmetry in the SST anomalies between El Niño and La Niña was found to be enhanced under increased GHG, for both the ensemble model data and the observed data (1900-1999). Enhanced asymmetry between El Niño and La Niña was also manifested in the anomalies of the zonal wind stress, the equatorial undercurrent and the meridional overturning circulation in the increased GHG simulations. The enhanced asymmetry in the model SST anomalies was mainly caused by the greatly intensified vertical nonlinear dynamic heating (NDH) anomaly (i.e. product of the vertical velocity anomaly and the negative vertical temperature gradient anomaly) during El Niño (but not during La Niña). Under increased GHG, the enhanced positive NDH anomalies during El Niño when time-averaged over the whole record would change the SST mean state by an El Niño-like pattern.