Linkage of El Niño-Southern Oscillation to astronomic forcing

Abstract Deciphering the causes of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) represents one of the greatest scientific and societal challenges because ENSO impacts people’s safety, food, water, health, and economy. Traditionally, ENSO has been considered a phenomenon that is mostly influenced by the interactions between oceanic and atmospheric processes, i.e. by the internal variability in Earth’s ocean-atmosphere system. However, dendrochronological records of climate indices, ENSO among them, have statistically significant variance at periodicities related to solar activity (sunspots) and lunar precessions. Other studies indicate a modulation by the lunar nodal cycle of ocean’s mixing and its implications on water and air temperatures, steric sea levels, coastal flooding, rain, river discharge and heat transport. Those findings suggest that astronomic forces may influence ENSO. In fact, this study shows that a fit to well-established periodicities from lunar precessions, solar activity and their interactions explains 91% of the variance of an ENSO index smoothed at 5 years, and 67% of a 3 yr filtered ENSO index. Provided that the future Earth’s ocean-atmospheric system remains roughly within historical bounds under a changing climate in the next 2–3 decades, one can venture a projection into the future of 3- and 5 yr smoothed ENSO variability. Such projection is given here and might help in preparations for adaptation and mitigation measures caused by ENSO-related coastal hazards.