Influence of El Niño on atmospheric CO
2
over the tropical Pacific Ocean: Findings from NASA’s OCO-2 mission
Authors: Chatterjee A. , Gierach M. M. , Sutton A. J. , Feely R. A. , Crisp D. , Eldering A. , Gunson M. R. , O’Dell C. W. , Stephens B. B. , Schimel D. S. 
Published: October 2017

INTRODUCTION

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) is NASA’s first satellite designed to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO
2
) with the precision, resolution, and coverage necessary to quantify regional carbon sources and sinks. OCO-2 launched on 2 July 2014, and during the first 2 years of its operation, a major El Niño occurred: the 2015–2016 El Niño, which was one of the strongest events ever recorded.

El Niño and its cold counterpart La Niña (collectively known as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation or ENSO) are the dominant modes of tropical climate variability. ENSO originates in the tropical Pacific Ocean but spurs a variety of anomalous weather patterns around the globe. Not surprisingly, it also leaves an imprint on the global carbon cycle. Understanding the magnitude and phasing of the ENSO-CO
2
relationship has important implications for improving the predictability of carbon-climate feedbacks.

The high-density observations from NASA’s OCO-2 mission, coupled with surface ocean CO
2
measurements from NOAA buoys, have provided us with a unique data set to track the atmospheric CO
2
concentrations and unravel the timing of the response of the ocean and the terrestrial carbon cycle during the 2015–2016 El Niño.

RATIONALE

During strong El Niño events, there is an overall increase in global atmospheric CO
2
concentrations. This increase is predominantly due to the response of the terrestrial carbon cycle to El Niño–induced changes in weather patterns. But along with the terrestrial component, the tropical Pacific Ocean also plays an important role. Typically, the tropical Pacific Ocean is a source of CO
2
to the atmosphere due to equatorial upwelling that brings CO
2
-rich water from the interior ocean to the surface. During El Niño, this equatorial upwelling is suppressed in the eastern and the central Pacific Ocean, reducing the supply of CO
2
to the surface. If CO
2
fluxes were to remain constant elsewhere, this reduction in ocean-to-atmosphere CO
2
fluxes should contribute to a slowdown in the growth of atmospheric CO
2
. This hypothesis cannot be verified, however, without large-scale CO
2
observations over the tropical Pacific Ocean.

RESULTS

OCO-2 observations confirm that the tropical Pacific Ocean played an early and important role in the response of atmospheric CO
2
concentrations to the 2015–2016 El Niño. By analyzing trends in the time series of atmospheric CO
2
, we see clear evidence of an initial decrease in atmospheric CO
2
concentrations over the tropical Pacific Ocean, specifically during the early stages of the El Niño event (March through July 2015). Atmospheric CO
2
concentration anomalies suggest a flux reduction of 26 to 54% that is validated by the NOAA Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) mooring CO
2
data. Both the OCO-2 and TAO data further show that the reduction in ocean-to-atmosphere fluxes is spatially variable and has strong gradients across the tropical Pacific Ocean.

During the later stages of the El Niño (August 2015 and later), the OCO-2 observations register a rise in atmospheric CO
2
concentrations. We attribute this increase to the response from the terrestrial component of the carbon cycle—a combination of reduction in biospheric uptake of CO
2
over pan-tropical regions and an enhancement in biomass burning emissions over Southeast Asia and Indonesia. The net impact of the 2015–2016 El Niño event on the global carbon cycle is an increase in atmospheric CO
2
concentrations, which would likely be larger if it were not for the reduction in outgassing from the ocean.

CONCLUSION

The strong El Niño event of 2015–2016 provided us with an opportunity to study how the global carbon cycle responds to a change in the physical climate system. Space-based observations of atmospheric CO
2
, such as from OCO-2, allow us to observe and monitor the temporal sequence of El Niño–induced changes in CO
2
concentrations. Disentangling the timing of the ocean and terrestrial responses is the first step toward interpreting their relative contribution to the global atmospheric CO
2
growth rate, and thereby understanding the sensitivity of the carbon cycle to climate forcing on interannual to decadal time scales.

NASA’s carbon sleuth tracks the influence of El Niño on atmospheric CO
2
.

The tropical Pacific Ocean, the center of action during an El Niño event, is shown in cross section. Warm ocean surface temperatures are shown in red, cooler waters in blue. The Niño 3.4 region, which scientists use to study the El Niño, is denoted by yellow dashed lines. As a result of OCO-2’s global coverage and 16-day repeat cycle, it flies over the entire region every few days, keeping tabs on the changes in atmospheric CO
2
concentration.