Fig. 2.

Large-scale climate factors associated with the short duration and long duration El Niño events. Composite anomalies of a vertical wind shear (units: m s^–1), c relative humidity (units: %), and e tropical cyclone heat potential (units: 10⁷ J m^–2) in July–November for the short duration El Niño events, b, d, and f as in a, c, and e, but for long duration El Niño events. Black boxes indicate the South China Sea and the Western Philippine Sea region. The vertical wind shear and relative humidity were from the NCEP-NCAR reanalysis dataset and the tropical cyclone heat potential was derived from the SODA reanalysis dataset. The stippled areas indicate the values are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level