Tropical Warm Pool
{{Short description|Climatological feature near Southeast Asia}}
The Tropical Warm Pool (TWP) or Indo-Pacific Warm Pool is a mass of ocean water located in the western Pacific Ocean and eastern Indian Ocean which consistently exhibits the highest water temperatures over the largest expanse of the Earth's surface.[http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article_pf.asp?ID=2690 USGS News Release Jan. 28, 2011] Its intensity and extent appear to oscillate over a time period measured in decades.[https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WarmPool/ NASA: "Reverberations of the Pacific Warm Pool"]
The Indo-Pacific warm pool has been warming rapidly and expanding during the recent decades, largely from climate change in response to increased carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning.{{Cite journal|last1=Weller|first1=Evan|last2=Min|first2=Seung-Ki|last3=Cai|first3=Wenju|last4=Zwiers|first4=Francis W.|last5=Kim|first5=Yeon-Hee|last6=Lee|first6=Donghyun|date=2016-07-01|title=Human-caused Indo-Pacific warm pool expansion|journal=Science Advances|volume=2|issue=7|pages=e1501719|doi=10.1126/sciadv.1501719|pmid=27419228 |pmc=4942332 |bibcode=2016SciA....2E1719W |issn=2375-2548|doi-access=free}} The warm pool nearly doubled in size, from an area of 22 million km2 during 1900–1980, to an area of 40 million km2 during 1981–2018;{{Cite journal|last1=Roxy|first1=M. K.|last2=Dasgupta|first2=Panini|last3=McPhaden|first3=Michael J.|last4=Suematsu|first4=Tamaki|last5=Zhang|first5=Chidong|last6=Kim|first6=Daehyun|date=November 2019|title=Twofold expansion of the Indo-Pacific warm pool warps the MJO life cycle|url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1764-4|journal=Nature|volume=575|issue=7784|pages=647–651|doi=10.1038/s41586-019-1764-4|pmid=31776488 |bibcode=2019Natur.575..647R |osti=1659516 |s2cid=208329374 |issn=1476-4687}} however, latest research suggests that this expansion rate may be overestimated.{{Cite journal |last=Leung |first=Jeremy Cheuk-Hin |last2=Zhang |first2=Banglin |last3=Gan |first3=Qiuying |last4=Wang |first4=Lei |last5=Qian |first5=Weihong |last6=Hu |first6=Zeng-Zhen |date=2022-11-24 |title=Differential expansion speeds of Indo-Pacific warm pool and deep convection favoring pool under greenhouse warming |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-022-00315-w |journal=npj Climate and Atmospheric Science |language=en |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=1–15 |doi=10.1038/s41612-022-00315-w |issn=2397-3722}} This expansion of the warm pool has allowed more cyclones as well as altered global rainfall patterns and variations by changing the life cycle of the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO), which is the most dominant mode of weather fluctuation originating in the tropics.{{Cite web|url=http://www.climate.rocksea.org/research/warm-pool-expansion-warps-mjo/|title=Warm pool expansion warps MJO – Climate Research Lab, CCCR, IITM|access-date=2019-11-29}}