Impact of ENSO on East African ecosystems: a multivariate analysis based on climate and remote sensing data

1 The El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an important driver of inter‐annual variations in climate and ecosystem productivity in tropical regions. Most previous studies have analysed ENSO‐induced changes in climate based on a single variable, such as rainfall. Also, it is generally assumed that the ENSO impact in East Africa is geographically uniform. 2 The objective of this study is to improve understanding of the impact of ENSO on East African ecosystems, by measuring teleconnections between an ENSO index and a number of ecosystem variables in a spatially explicit way and for different time lags. We analysed the spatial patterns of teleconnections in the region by combining time series of climate variables measured for meteorological stations with time series of a vegetation index and surface temperature data measured by remote sensing. 3 Our results confirm the ENSO impact on the climatic and ecological variability in East Africa. However, the pattern of teleconnections is much more complex than generally assumed, both in terms of spatial distribution and impact on different ecosystem variables. Not all climate and land surface variables are teleconnected to ENSO in the same way, which leads to a complex impact of ENSO on the ecosystem. Moreover, the ENSO impact is highly differentiated in space, as the direction, magnitude and timing of this impact are controlled by the local climate system, the presence of large lakes, proximity to the coast and, possibly, local topography and land cover.