Two scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s International Pacific Research Center along with their colleagues from Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia conducted a study, exploring sea level rise in the Pacific Ocean.

Computer modeling experiments and tide-gauge analysis were done by Matthew Wildlansky, Axel Timmermann, and Wenju Cai for understanding the culprit for likely frequent extreme inter-annual sea level swings. A behavioral change of the El Niño phenomenon and its characteristic Pacific wind response has been projected by the study trio.

At the time of El Niño, warm water and high sea levels shift eastward, leaving the western Pacific with low water levels. In the coming 6months to a year later, the east-west seesaw, followed by north-south sea level seesaw is likely to result in drop in water levels by about one foot in the Southern Hemisphere.

Shallow marine ecosystems in the South Pacific Islands can be exposed due to these drops, and lead to huge coral die-offs and foul smelling tide, called taimasa.

The scientists explored the greenhouse warming effect of El Niño sea level seesaws in the coming time. Scientists used state-of-the-art climate models, and accounted for rising greenhouse gas concentrations, along with simulations of the noted climate and tide-gauge records for the verification of the model results.

They determined that projected climate change is going to boost El Niño-related sea level extremes. According to the results, by the end of century, the experiments will be showcasing intensified wind impacts of El Niño and La Nina events, which will probably double the frequency of extreme sea level occurrences, mainly in the tropical southwestern Pacific.

El Niño is the warm phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific including off the Pacific coast of South America. El Niño Southern Oscillation refers to the cycle of warm and cold temperatures, as measured by sea surface temperature, SST, of the tropical central and eastern Pacific Ocean.

El Niño is accompanied by high air pressure in the western Pacific and low air pressure in the eastern Pacific. The cool phase of ENSO is called "La Niña" with SST in the eastern Pacific below average and air pressures high in the eastern and low in western Pacific.