El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is one of the most dominant climate variabilities on this planet due to its vast influence on atmospheric circulation and hydrologic cycle. Though correlations between terrestrial water storage (TWS) change and ENSO have been found worldwide, the ENSO-related TWS change has not been thoroughly and quantitatively characterized, which hampers a better understanding of how ENSO influences TWS change. This study extracts the key interannual signals from the TWS change estimated by Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-on (GRACE-FO) mascon solutions between 2002 and 2020 in global 28 hot areas. Results show that all the extracted signals exhibit cosine-like variation patterns that have peak-to-valley durations of around 7 years, peak-to-valley amplitudes of 0.5-19.0 cm, and different phase shifts. Correlation analysis shows that these signals are highly correlated to ENSO with a mean absolute time-lagged correlation coefficient (CC) of 0.92, suggesting these signals are a response of TWS to ENSO. Water balance analysis demonstrates that precipitation (P), evapotranspiration (E), and runoff (R) signals exhibit stronger and similar cosine-like temporal patterns to the TWS signals, having CC values of 0.89, 0.84, and 0.79 to the ENSO signal. This analysis indicates that ENSO exerted influences on TWS through P, E, and R globally and emphasizes the contribution of P in modulating the TWS signals. This study quantitatively analyzes the response of TWS to ENSO, which may enhance the understanding of the interactions between atmospheric circulation and hydrologic cycle.
 

GRACE,El Niño-Southern Oscillation,terrestrial water storage change