Causal influences of El Niño–Southern Oscillation on global dust activities

Abstract

The dust cycle is an important element of the Earth system, and further understanding of the main drivers of dust emission, transport, and deposition is necessary. The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the main source of interannual climate variability and is likely to influence the dust cycle on a global scale. However, the causal influences of ENSO on dust activities across the globe remain unclear. Here we investigate the response of dust activities to ENSO using output from Coupled Modeling Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) historical simulations during the 1850–2014 period. The analyses consider the confounding impacts of the Southern Annular Mode, the Indian Ocean Dipole, and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Our results show that ENSO is an important driver of dry and wet dust deposition over the Pacific, Indian, and Southern oceans and parts of the Atlantic Ocean during 1850–2014. Over continents, ENSO signature is found in America, Australia, parts of Asia, and Africa. Further, ENSO displays significant impacts on dust aerosol optical depth over oceans, implying the controls of ENSO on the transport of atmospheric dust. Nevertheless, the results indicate that ENSO is unlikely to exhibit causal impacts on regional dust emissions of major dust sources. While we find high consensus across CMIP6 models in simulating the impacts of ENSO on dust deposition and transport, there is little agreement between models for the ENSO causal impacts on dust emission. Overall, the results emphasize the important role of ENSO in global dust activities.