Tropical Indo-Pacific climate shifts to a more El Nino-like state, research finds
Wednesday, November 14, 2012 - 13:00
in Earth & Climate
Climate models predict a slowdown of the Walker circulation with global warming. Atmospheric models, however, have failed to reproduce the slowdown already observed over the last 60 years, casting doubt on their ability to simulate slow climate change. Now a study published in this week's issue of Nature has succeeded in simulating the slowdown and shows that changes in the sea surface temperature pattern across the Indo-Pacific are the cause.