The response of terrestrial water storage change to El Niño-Southern Oscillation in global 28 hot areas revealed by GRACE

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， the ENSO-related TWS change has not been thoroughly characterized， which hampers a better understanding of how ENSO influences the TWS change. This study applies multichannel singular spectrum analysis (MSSA) to extract 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 2022 in global 28 hot areas. Results show that the extracted signals exhibit similar peak-to-valley durations of ～8 years， different peak-to-valley amplitudes (ranging from 0.4 cm to 19.1 cm in magnitude)， and shifted phases. Water balance analysis shows that cumulative precipitation anomaly (CPA) and cumulative evapotranspiration anomaly (CEA) signals exhibit stronger and similar temporal patterns to the signals from TWS， and emphasizes the contribution of precipitation in modulating the TWS signals. We also extract the interannual ENSO signals and find one dominant signal having similar temporal patterns to the signals from TWS， CPA， and CEA， indicating the extracted hydrological signals are a response to the interannual ENSO variability. Our results suggest that the weak ENSO-modulated TWS signals in some regions resulted from the cancellation of simultaneously increasing (decreasing) precipitation and evapotranspiration. Overall， this study characterizes and quantifies the global response of the TWS variation to ENSO， which may enhance the understanding of the interactions between atmospheric circulation and hydrologic cycle.