Pantropical climate interactions

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation, which originates in the tropical Pacific, affects the rest of the world's tropics by perturbing global atmospheric circulation. Less appreciated than this influence is how the tropical Atlantic and Indian Oceans affect the Pacific. Cai et al. review what we know about these pantropical interactions, discuss possible ways of improving predictions of current climate variability, and consider how projecting future climate under different anthropogenic forcing scenarios may be improved. They argue that making progress in this field will require sustained global climate observations, climate model improvements, and theoretical advances.