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El Niño transitions are ordered by episodic, cyclic, and multiyear modes, whereas La Niña shows the reversed ordering. A subtropical Pacific onset mechanism explains the asymmetry by linking nonlinear subtropical responses to the tropical Pacific mean state. CMIP5/6 models capture El Niño transition complexity but fail for La Niña due to a weaker subtropical onset mechanism and a cold bias in tropical mean SSTs.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/contrasting-transition-complexity-between-el-nino-and-la-nina-observations-and-cmip56-models/665609/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/contrasting-transition-complexity-between-el-nino-and-la-nina-observations-and-cmip56-models/665609.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Emma Wilson","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-30","2026-10-29",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":81},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"How do El Niño and La Niña differ in transition complexity?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"El Niño transitions follow an order of episodic, cyclic, and multiyear patterns, while La Niña shows the reversed order.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What mechanism explains the asymmetry between El Niño and La Niña transitions?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"A subtropical Pacific onset mechanism explains the difference by producing multiyear and episodic transitions through subtropical processes and their nonlinear response to the tropical mean state.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"Why do CMIP5/6 models fail to reproduce La Niña transition complexity?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"They underestimate a subtropical onset mechanism and also exhibit a cold bias in the tropical Pacific mean sea surface temperatures in the models.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},665609,1793305170,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":81,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":129,"read_time":144},3848291630094,"https://eur-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45","RESEARCH LETTER  \n10.1029/2020GL088926  \nKey Points:  \n• El Niño transitions are dominated by, in order, episodic, cyclic, and multiyear patterns, but the reversed order is found for La Niña  \n• This asymmetry is caused by a subtropical Pacific mechanism that produces more episodic (multiyear) transitions for El Niño (La Niña)  \n• CMIP5 models fail to simulate the asymmetry due to a cold bias in their tropical mean states and an overly weak subtropical mechanism  \nSupporting Information:  \n• Supporting Information S1  \nCorrespondence to:  \nJ.‐Y. Yu,  \n[jyyu@uci.edu](jyyu@uci.edu)  \nCitation:  \nFang, S.‐W., & Yu, J.‐Y. (2020) . Contrasting transition complexity between El Niño and La Niña:  \nObservations and CMIP5/6 models. Geophysical Research Letters, 47, e2020GL088926. [https://doi.org/](https://doi.org/)[ ](https://doi.org/)[10.1029/2020GL088926](10.1029/2020GL088926)  \nReceived 20 MAY 2020 Accepted 12 JUL 2020  \nAccepted article online 29 JUL 2020  \n©2020 . American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.  \nContrasting Transition Complexity Between El Niño and La Niña: Observations and CMIP5/6 Models  \nShih‐Wei Fang1  and Jin‐Yi Yu1   \n1Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA  \nAbstract The observed El Niño and La Niña exhibit different complexities in their event‐to‐event transition patterns. The El Niño is dominated in order by episodic, cyclic, and multiyear transitions, but the reversed order is found in the La Niña. A subtropical Pacific onset mechanism is used to explain this difference. This mechanism triggers El Niño/La Niña events via subtropical processes and is responsible for producing multiyear and episodic transitions. Its nonlinear responses to the tropical Pacific mean state result in more multiyear transitions for La Niña than El Niño and more episodic transitions for El Niño than La Niña. The CMIP5/6 models realistically simulate the observed transition complexity of El Niño but fail to simulate the transition complexity of La Niña. This deficiency in CMIP5 models arises from a weaker than observed subtropical onset mechanism and a cold bias in the tropical Pacific mean sea surface temperatures in the models.  \nPlain Language Summary A new asymmetry is found between the warm (i.e., El Niño) and cold (i.e., La Niña) phases of El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in their event‐to‐event transition patterns. The observed El Niño transitions is dominated in order by the episodic, cyclic, and multiyear patterns, but the reversed order is found in the La Niña transitions. This difference in the transitions arises from a subtropical Pacific forcing mechanism that triggers ENSO events. The subtropical onset mechanism is found to generate more episodic transitions for El Niño than La Niña and more multiyear transitions for La Niña than El Niño. This asymmetry is due to nonlinear responses of the subtropical mechanism to the tropical mean sea surface temperatures (SSTs) . State‐of‐art global climate models realistically simulate the observed transition complexity of El Niño but fail to reproduce the transition complexity of La Niña. This deficiencyarises from a weak subtropical onset mechanism and a cold bias in the tropical Pacific mean SSTs in the models.  \n1. Introduction  \nEl Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a complex phenomenon that involves wide ranges of different patterns, amplitudes, and temporal evolutions (Capotondi et al., 2015; Kao & Yu, 2009; Timmermannet al., 2018; C. Wang et al., 2017; Yu & Fang, 2018; Yu et al., 2017) . One important part of the complexity appears in the way that one ENSO event transitions to another. An El Niño (La Niña) event can be preceded by a La Niña (El Niño) event to result in a cyclic transition, by another El Niño (La Niña) event to become amultiyear transition, or by a neutral (non‐ENSO) condition to become an episodic transition (Yu & Fang, 2018) . ENSO onset mechanisms control how anomalies in sea surface temperature (SST) are establishe","cbCailp29yz8jaFF","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCailp29yz8jaFF","pdf",5265570,26,"English","# Key Points\n# Abstract\n# Plain Language Summary\n# 1. Introduction\n## ENSO transition complexity\n## Onset mechanisms (TP-onset and SP-onset)\n## TP-onset mechanism and implications","[{\"question\":\"How do El Niño and La Niña differ in transition complexity?\",\"answer\":\"El Niño transitions follow an order of episodic, cyclic, and multiyear patterns, while La Niña shows the reversed order.\"},{\"question\":\"What mechanism explains the asymmetry between El Niño and La Niña transitions?\",\"answer\":\"A subtropical Pacific onset mechanism explains the difference by producing multiyear and episodic transitions through subtropical processes and their nonlinear response to the tropical mean state.\"},{\"question\":\"Why do CMIP5/6 models fail to reproduce La Niña transition complexity?\",\"answer\":\"They underestimate a subtropical onset mechanism and also exhibit a cold bias in the tropical Pacific mean sea surface temperatures in the models.\"}]","Contrasting Transition Complexity Between El Niño and La Niña - Observations and CMIP5/6 Models | PDF",66]