The mid-Pliocene, the most recent warm geological period, is thought to be indicative of the fate of the Earth's climate under global warming. Earlier evidence has suggested that permanent El Nio-like conditions...The mid-Pliocene, the most recent warm geological period, is thought to be indicative of the fate of the Earth's climate under global warming. Earlier evidence has suggested that permanent El Nio-like conditions existed in the mid-Pliocene, though the concept of a permanent El Nio remains controversial. Here, the authors analyzed Nio 3.4 SST in pre-industrial and mid-Pliocene simulations with the low-resolution version of the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM-L). The simulated mid-Pliocene Nio3.4 SST, with a smaller standard deviation, indicated that a weaker ENSO existed in the mid-Pliocene relative to the pre-industrial experiment. Compared with earlier modeling studies, our simulations show that the problem of ENSO's standard deviations in the mid-Pliocene remains unresolved, although the mean and the period of ENSO in the mid-Pliocene have been resolved by earlier geological and modeling studies.展开更多
基金supported by the National Basic Research Program of China(973 Program,Grant No.2010CB950102)the Strategic and Special Frontier Project of Science and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(Grant No. XDA05080803)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.40902054)
文摘The mid-Pliocene, the most recent warm geological period, is thought to be indicative of the fate of the Earth's climate under global warming. Earlier evidence has suggested that permanent El Nio-like conditions existed in the mid-Pliocene, though the concept of a permanent El Nio remains controversial. Here, the authors analyzed Nio 3.4 SST in pre-industrial and mid-Pliocene simulations with the low-resolution version of the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM-L). The simulated mid-Pliocene Nio3.4 SST, with a smaller standard deviation, indicated that a weaker ENSO existed in the mid-Pliocene relative to the pre-industrial experiment. Compared with earlier modeling studies, our simulations show that the problem of ENSO's standard deviations in the mid-Pliocene remains unresolved, although the mean and the period of ENSO in the mid-Pliocene have been resolved by earlier geological and modeling studies.