Influence of El Niño on atmospheric CO2over the tropical Pacific Ocean: Findings from NASA’s OCO-2 mission Science

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) is NASA’s first satellite designed to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) 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-CO2 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 CO2 measurements from NOAA buoys, have provided us with a unique data set to track the atmospheric CO2 concentrations and unravel the timing of the response of the ocean and the terrestrial carbon cycle during the 2015–2016 El Niño.