| The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the leading mode of interannual variability in
the global climate system. A complex collection of geophysical causes contributes to it, and
many efforts have been made to reduce its representation to a simple model that describes its
mean features and the fluctuations. Up to now the results have mainly been on the
stationary statistical properties but here, for the first time, we obtain an analytical
result for the timing of El Niño events. We arrive to that introducing in this field an
approach derived from the context of the foundation of Thermodynamics: the role of
the “microscopic” system is played by the atmosphere, while the El Niño ocean
variables play the role of the “macroscopic” system. Thus, as for Thermodynamics, El
Niño emerges as a universal large scale property from a general class of complex
systems.
References: Bianucci, M. “Analytical probability density function for the statistics of the
ENSO phenomenon: Asymmetry and power law tail". Geophysical Research Letters 43,
386–394 (2016). |