DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK ORGANISED BY TASKS

TASK 1: CARACTERIZING ENSO FROM PROXY DATA AND CLIMATE SIMULATIONS FOR THE DIFFERENT PERIODS OF INTEREST

Partners: EPOC‐ISEM (coord Th. Corrège), LSCE, LOCEAN, CEREGE

Objective : The objectives of this task are to characterize the climate mean state and variability using different proxy indicators and model simulations for the different key periods of the project (PI, 4ka, 6ka, 9.5 ka, LGM and 32ka). This requires that we adopt common definitions for the measure of climate variability to be able to compare the different records. This task will also highlight the diversity of changes recorded by different proxies and the variety of ENSO characteristics simulated by different models or for different time slices.

TASK 2: SIGNATURE OF ENSO VARIABILITY IN THE TROPICAL PACIFIC AND INDIAN OCEANS

Partners: CEREGE (coord. Luc Beaufort), LSCE, LOCEAN, EPOC‐ISEM

Objectives: The goal of this task is to combine model and data to assess which climatic parameters most affect the different proxies in different part of the Pacific and Indian ocean and to provide the best estimate of the mean state, seasonal variability and short term (1‐50 yrs) variability from the combination of the different proxies.

TASK 3: SIGNATURE OF ENSO VARIABILITY IN THE AFRICAN, INDIAN AND SOUTH AMERICAN MONSOON REGIONS

Partners: LOCEAN (coord. B. Turcq), LSCE, EPOC‐ISEM, CEREGE

Objectives : The objectives of this task are to better understand the relationship between climate changes in regions affected by the tropical monsoons of both hemispheres and ENSO variability in the Pacific ocean. The comparison between continental proxies and model results should provide a spatial pattern of climate changes. For each time slices defined within ELPASO, continental proxies will help us to characterize climate mean state, seasonality and extreme event occurrences in the different monsoon systems. Owing to the different resolution reached by the continental proxies, several temporal scales will be investigated. Data‐model comparisons will enable us to determine in the different periods if changes in ENS variability were sufficient to alter the different proxies in remote monsoon areas.

TASK 4: SYNTHESIS AND EVALUATION OF CLIMATE PROJECTIONS

Partners: LOCEAN (coord. E. Guilyarid), LSCE, EPOC‐ISEM, CEREGE

Objectives : Task 4 is devoted to the syntheses of the results with the aim to highlight our understanding of past ENSO variations under different climate state, and to use a multi model, multi‐proxy and multi‐period approach to test the capacity of climate model to simulate ENSO variability in the future, i.e in a climate state different from the modern one.

Task 5: COORDINATION, DATABASE AND DISSEMINATION

Partners: LSCE (coord. P. Braconnot, LSCE) , T. Corrège, L. Beaufort and B. Turcq

Objectives : This task is devoted to the coordination of the whole project. It includes the support needed to share the data syntheses and the model outputs. This work package also considers the dissemination of the results and will foster the production of join papers.