El Niño and its Relationship to Changing background Conditions in the Tropical Pacific Ocean

This paper addresses the question of whether the increased occurrence of central Pacific (CP) versus Eastern Pacific (EP) El Niños is consistent with greenhouse gas forced changes in the background state of the tropical Pacific as inferred from global climate change models.

The analysis uses high‐quality satellite and in situ ocean data combined with wind data from atmospheric reanalyses for the past 31 years (1980–2010).