Abstract
Continental-scale studies of North America suggest that the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) can cause winters to be warmer, with less precipitation, during El Niño conditions and colder, with more precipitation, during La Niña conditions in the Midwest United States. Two sources of historical records of precipitation and temperature in southwest Ohio from 1896 to 2016 were analyzed. Three statistical methodologies were used to test the hypothesis that anomalies in winter temperature and precipitation occurred in relation to ENSO phases. Eighty percent of El Niño winters had below-average winter precipitation; the average anomaly was −5 cm. Precipitation decreased with increase in El Niño strength as measured by the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI). These results were statistically significant beyond the 95% level. However, variation in MEI only accounted for 3% of the overall variability in winter precipitation. Many of the drier winters on record, including the extrema, occurred during neutral winters. During La Niña winters precipitation was not statistically significantly different from that in neutral winters. Winter temperature was not statistically significantly different during El Niño and La Niña winters within the century of record. The results were consistent between separate analyses of data from the 2 different sources.
Highlights
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an atmospheric cycle originating in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean (Diaz and Markgraf 1992; Capotondi et al 2015; Lindsey 2016)
Of El Niño winters, 80% had cumulative winter precipitation less than the neutral-winter mean (NWM); this result is consistent with Fig. 4a
The 95% confidence interval (CI) on the sample proportions listed in Table 4 fall entirely above 0.5, and these results are unambiguously consistent with the research hypothesis that El Niño winters have had less precipitation
Summary
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an atmospheric cycle originating in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean (Diaz and Markgraf 1992; Capotondi et al 2015; Lindsey 2016). The ENSO oscillates between El Niño and La Niña conditions, which involve changes in sea surface temperature, air temperature, wind circulation, and other sea surface and atmospheric properties. These alter both the Polar and Pacific jet streams, which in turn alter weather patterns around the world, including in North America (Ropelewski and Halpert 1987; Aceituno 1992; Zhang et al 2011; Yu et al 2012; Johnson et al 2013; Yu and Zou 2013; Zhou et al 2014; Lindsey 2017). ENSO phases have variable strengths (Wolter and Timlin 1998), and phases with similar strengths can have different effects on continentalscale weather (Arndt 2015)
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