Data for "Responses of El Niño and La Niña precipitation to CO2 removal"

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-induced tropical Pacific rainfall anomaly is central to ENSO dynamics and teleconnections, but its response to climate change mitigation remains less explored. Using a large ensemble simulation of symmetric CO2 ramp-up and ramp-down pathways, we found pronounced hysteresis and asymmetric features of equatorial Pacific rainfall changes between two ENSO phases. El Niño rainfall shows a century-scale hysteretic enhancement in the eastern Pacific, mainly due to the increase in cloud-longwave radiation feedback and deep convection anomaly modulated by the background Intertropical Convergence Zone changes. The La Niña precipitation intensification confined to the central-western Pacific is contributed by increased background moisture and shallow convection anomalies related to the SST anomaly structure, with a hysteresis timescale of a few decades following ocean thermal inertia. The distinct regimes and resilience of El Niño and La Niña precipitation have important implications for climate change mitigation and ENSO-mean state interactions.