Increasing intensity of El Nino in the central-equatorial Pacific

Satellite observations suggest that the intensity of El Nino events in the central equatorial Pacific (CP) has almost doubled in the past three decades, with the strongest warming occurring in 2009-10. This is related to the increasing intensity as well as occurrence frequency of the so-called CP El Nino events since the 1990s. While sea surface temperature (SST) in the CP region during El Nino years has been increasing, those during neutral and La Nina years have not. Therefore, the well-documented warming trend of the warm pool in the CP region is primarily a result of more intense El Nino events rather than a general rise of background SST. Citation: Lee, T., and M. J. McPhaden (2010), Increasing intensity of El Nino in the central-equatorial Pacific, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L14603, doi:10.1029/2010GL044007.