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Updated: Apr 14, 2026

Using Generative Art to Convey Past and Future Climate Transitions
Published on: March 31, 2023
Skilful multi-year predictions of tropical trans-basin climate variability
Yoshimitsu Chikamoto1, Axel Timmermann1,2, Jing-Jia Luo3
1International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1680 East-West Road, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA.
Abstract:
Tropical Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies influence the atmospheric circulation, impacting climate far beyond the tropics. The predictability of the corresponding atmospheric signals is typically limited to less than 1 year lead time. Here we present observational and modelling evidence for multi-year predictability of coherent trans-basin climate variations that are characterized by a zonal seesaw in tropical sea surface temperature and sea-level pressure between the Pacific and the other two ocean basins. State-of-the-art climate model forecasts initialized from a realistic ocean state show that the low-frequency trans-basin climate variability, which explains part of the El Niño Southern Oscillation flavours, can be predicted up to 3 years ahead, thus exceeding the predictive skill of current tropical climate forecasts for natural variability. This low-frequency variability emerges from the synchronization of ocean anomalies in all basins via global reorganizations of the atmospheric Walker Circulation.
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