Kyong-Bok Sonu
Department of Meteorology, Faculty of Global Environmental Science, Kim Il Sung University, Pyongyang 999093, Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Hyon-Su Ri
Department of Meteorology, Faculty of Global Environmental Science, Kim Il Sung University, Pyongyang 999093, Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Sang-Il Jong
Department of Meteorology, Faculty of Global Environmental Science, Kim Il Sung University, Pyongyang 999093, Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Yong-Sik Ham
Department of Meteorology, Faculty of Global Environmental Science, Kim Il Sung University, Pyongyang 999093, Democratic People's Republic of Korea
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a dominant interannual climate mode influencing global weather patterns. This study investigates the evolving relationship between ENSO and seasonal climate over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) from 1950 to 2024. Using the Niño3.4 index alongside homogenized monthly temperature and precipitation records from 37 stations, we applied continuous wavelet analysis, Mann-Kendall abrupt change detection, and 21-year sliding correlation techniques. To isolate interannual ENSO signals, linear trends associated with global warming were removed from temperature data. Results indicate that 25 El Niño and 20 La Niña events occurred, with the Niño3.4 index exhibiting a dominant 1–5.7-year periodicity and a statistically significant regime shift in the late 1970s. Following detrending, the ENSO–winter temperature teleconnection weakened markedly after the late 1980s. Specifically, El Niño-induced DJF warming intensified by +0.45 °C (p < 0.01) in the 1991–2024 period compared to 1950–1990, whereas La Niña winters transitioned from anomalously warm to cold. Summer climate responses also shifted significantly: El Niño-related JJA precipitation decreased by 73.1 mm (from +20.7 to −52.4 mm, p < 0.05) in the DPRK, while La Niña summers exhibited opposite trends. These nonstationary relationships, driven by decadal reorganizations of Pacific-Asian atmospheric circulations, provide critical insights for improving seasonal climate prediction and informing regional climate adaptation strategies in the DPRK.
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Copyright © 2026 Kyong-Bok Sonu, Hyon-Su Ri, Sang-Il Jong, Yong-Sik Ham
This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.
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