DATE2025.11.18 #Press Releases
Could phytoplankton weaken El Niño?
-Mechanism by which phytoplankton attenuate El Niño events-
Summary
A research group led by Associate Professor Tomoki Tozuka and graduate student Kaito Koike (at the time of research) from the Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, together with Senior Scientist Yoshikazu Sasai from the Research Center for Environmental Modeling, Research Institute for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), has successfully quantified, for the first time, the impact of phytoplankton on El Niño events—a relationship that had long been difficult to evaluate quantitatively.
Previous studies had suggested that phytoplankton might weaken El Niño events, but quantifying their influence remained a major challenge. In this study, the researchers developed a novel method to quantify the effect of phytoplankton on sea surface temperature. Using an ocean ecosystem model, they demonstrated that phytoplankton activity can suppress the amplitude of El Niño events by approximately 40%. The method is based on a simplified representation of complex oceanic conditions, and further verification under more realistic settings is expected to improve estimation accuracy.
El Niño events are a major cause of abnormal weather conditions around the world, including in Japan. The present findings suggest that incorporating marine ecosystem processes such as phytoplankton activity into prediction models could enhance the accuracy of seasonal forecasts of extreme weather events months in advance.
Figure：Mechanism by which phytoplankton weaken El Niño events
Links
Journals
-
Journal name Environmental Research LettersTitle of paper How important is the damping effect of phytoplankton on ENSO?