Oceanographic events during el nino

El Ni?o events, the most spectacular instances of interannual variability in the ocean, have profound consequences for climate and the ocean ecosystem. The 1982-1983 El Ni?o is perhaps the strongest in this century. El Ni?o events usually have followed a predictable pattern, but the recent event differs markedly. The physical oceanography of this El Ni?o is described and compared with that of earlier events.     

A north atlantic climate pacemaker for the centuries

Although El Ni?o and La Ni?a are the largest single sources of global interannual climate variability, climate shifts on longer time scales than El Ni?o's 2 to 7 years are also drawing the attention of researchers. On multidecadal time scales of 40 to 80 years, a restless North Atlantic seems to be at work, alternately countering and enhancing humankind's alterations of climate. The evidence for this is turning up in such records as tree rings, ice cores, and corals.     

An Improved Procedure for EI Nino Forecasting: Implications for Predictability

A coupled ocean-atmosphere data assimilation procedure yields improved forecasts of El Ni?o for the 1980s compared with previous forecasting procedures. As in earlier forecasts with the same model, no oceanic data were used, and only wind information was assimilated. The improvement is attributed to the explicit consideration of air-sea interaction in the initialization. These results suggest that EI Ni?o is more predictable than previously estimated, but that predictability may vary on decadal or longer time scales. This procedure also eliminates the well-known spring barrier to EI Ni?o prediction, which implies that it may not be intrinsic to the real climate system.     

ENSO as an integrating concept in earth science

The El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle of alternating warm El Ni?o and cold La Ni?a events is the dominant year-to-year climate signal on Earth. ENSO originates in the tropical Pacific through interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere, but its environmental and socioeconomic impacts are felt worldwide. Spurred on by the powerful 1997-1998 El Ni?o, efforts to understand the causes and consequences of ENSO have greatly expanded in the past few years. These efforts reveal the breadth of ENSO's influence on the Earth system and the potential to exploit its predictability for societal benefit. However, many intertwined issues regarding ENSO dynamics, impacts, forecasting, and applications remain unresolved. Research to address these issues will not only lead to progress across a broad range of scientific disciplines but also provide an opportunity to educate the public and policy makers about the importance of climate variability and change in the modern world.     

Impacts of a global climate cycle on population dynamics of a migratory songbird

Progress toward understanding factors that limit abundances of migratory birds, including climate change, has been difficult because these species move between diverse locations, often on different continents. For black-throated blue warblers (Dendroica caerulescens), demographic rates in both tropical winter quarters and north temperate breeding grounds varied with fluctuations in the El Ni?o Southern Oscillation. Adult survival and fecundity were lower in El Ni?o years and higher in La Ni?a years. Fecundity, in turn, was positively correlated with subsequent recruitment of new individuals into winter and breeding populations. These findings demonstrate that migratory birds can be affected by shifts in global climate patterns and emphasize the need to know how events throughout the annual cycle interact to determine population size.     

Unraveling the mystery of Indian monsoon failure during El Niño

The 132-year historical rainfall record reveals that severe droughts in India have always been accompanied by El Ni?o events. Yet El Ni?o events have not always produced severe droughts. We show that El Ni?o events with the warmest sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the central equatorial Pacific are more effective in focusing drought-producing subsidence over India than events with the warmest SSTs in the eastern equatorial Pacific. The physical basis for such different impacts is established using atmospheric general circulation model experiments forced with idealized tropical Pacific warmings. These findings have important implications for Indian monsoon forecasting.     

A theory for el nino and the southern oscillation

A coupled atmosphere-ocean model is presented for El Ni?o and the Southern Oscillation that reproduces its major features, including its recurrence at irregular intervals. The interannual El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation cycle is maintained by deterministic interactions in the tropical Pacific region. Ocean dynamics alter sea-surface temperature, changing the atmospheric heating; the resulting changes in surface wind alter the ocean dynamics. Annually varying mean conditions largely determine the spatial pattern and temporal evolution of El Ni?o events.     

Breeding patterns of galapagos penguins as an indicator of oceanographic conditions

Surface water changes associated with El Ni?o have been known to affect deleteriously top carnivores along coastal South America. Data on the breeding strategies of Galápagos penguins and other seabirds indicate that the biological effects of El Ni?o extend much farther west. The breeding biology of these seabirds is adapted to frequent changes in productivity which are associated with El Ni?o.     

Atmospheric carbon dioxide, the southern oscillation, and the weak 1975 el nino

The observed rate of change of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration at the South Pole, Fanning Island, Hawaii, and ocean weather station P correlates with an index of the southern oscillation and with El Ni?o occurrences. There are changes at all four stations that seem to be in response to the weak 1975 El Ni?o. Thus, even poorly developed El Ni?o events may affect the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.     

Satellite observations of the 1982-1983 el nino along the u.s. Pacific coast

Satellite infrared temperature images illustrate several effects of the 1982-1983 El Ni?o: warm sea-surface temperatures with the greatest anomalies near the coast, weakened coastal upwelling, and changes in surface circulation patterns. Phytoplankton pigment images from the Coastal Zone Color Scanner indicate reduced productivity during El Ni?o, apparently related to the weakened coastal upwelling The satellite images provide direct evidence of mesoscale changes associated with the oceanwide El Ni?o event.     

厄尔尼诺/拉尼娜事件对区域气温的影响与预测——以沈阳地区为例

利用1961—2015年国家气象信息中心沈阳站的日平均气温资料、美国国家海洋和大气管理局（National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,NOAA）提供的多变量ENSO指数（multivariate ENSO index,MEI）资料等,在分析沈阳地区气温月际变化的基础上,结合厄尔尼诺/拉尼娜事件对其影响特征,利用线性倾向估计和非线性自回归（nonlinear auto regressive models with exogenous inputs,NARX）神经网络模型分别对沈阳地区2011—2015年的气温进行预测。结果表明,1961—2015年共计660个月中,沈阳地区11月—3月气温的变异系数在20%以上,远大于其他月份。1961—2015年的厄尔尼诺/拉尼娜事件往往在秋冬季达到最大强度,或为导致沈阳地区11月—3月气温变异增强的原因之一。厄尔尼诺事件结束之后的春季,沈阳地区气温偏低的概率逾70%。沈阳地区气温随MEI变化的线性倾向值为0.98,决定系数为0.98且通过了0.01的可信度检验。利用MEI对沈阳地区的气温进行同期和时滞预测,NARX的预测结果均优于一元线性回归模型。当气温滞后MEI16个月时,两者的相关系数达到最大且通过了0.01的显著性检验,此时回归模型预测的相关系数为0.59,较同期预测提升了79%;NARX预测的均方误差（mean-square error,MSE）为0.49,较同期预测降低了36%,相关系数为0.86,较同期预测提升了8%。     

Permanent El Niño-like conditions during the Pliocene warm period

During the warm early Pliocene (approximately 4.5 to 3.0 million years ago), the most recent interval with a climate warmer than today, the eastern Pacific thermocline was deep and the average west-to-east sea surface temperature difference across the equatorial Pacific was only 1.5 +/- 0.9 degrees C, much like it is during a modern El Ni?o event. Thus, the modern strong sea surface temperature gradient across the equatorial Pacific is not a stable and permanent feature. Sustained El Ni?o-like conditions, including relatively weak zonal atmospheric (Walker) circulation, could be a consequence of, and play an important role in determining, global warmth.     

Zonal winds in the central equatorial pacific and el nino

Easterly trade winds from near-equatorial islands in the central Pacific weakened before each El Ni?o between 1950 and 1978, except for the 1963 El Ni?o. The weakening of the easterlies and their later collapse did not occur uniformly over several months, but rather through a series of strong westerly wind bursts lasting 1 to 3 weeks. The bursts may force equatorial Kelvin waves in the ocean that can both initiate and sustain the sea surface warming characteristics of El Ni?o events.     

Biospheric primary production during an ENSO transition

The Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) provides global monthly measurements of both oceanic phytoplankton chlorophyll biomass and light harvesting by land plants. These measurements allowed the comparison of simultaneous ocean and land net primary production (NPP) responses to a major El Ni?o to La Ni?a transition. Between September 1997 and August 2000, biospheric NPP varied by 6 petagrams of carbon per year (from 111 to 117 petagrams of carbon per year). Increases in ocean NPP were pronounced in tropical regions where El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) impacts on upwelling and nutrient availability were greatest. Globally, land NPP did not exhibit a clear ENSO response, although regional changes were substantial.     

Climatic anomalies in the tropical pacific ocean and corn yields in the United States

The association between climatic anomalies in the tropical Pacific Ocean, often called El Ni?o events, and annual corn production in the United States was investigated. Temperature and atmospheric pressure in parts of the United States have been correlated with El Ni?o events. This research suggests that in years in which an El Ni?o event causes surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific to become warmer than normal, there is a higher probability of an above-average corn crop in the United States. For years when sea surface temperatures are average or cool, no significant association is observed.     

On the prediction of the el nino of 1986-1987

Three different classes of numerical models successfully predicted the occurrence of the El Ni?o of 1986-87 at lead times of 3 to 9 months. Although the magnitude and timing of predicted ocean surface temperatures were not perfect, these results suggest that routine prediction of moderate to lare El Ni?o events is feasible. The key to the success of the models lies in recognizing or simulating the low-frequency, large-scale changes in the tropical ocean-atmosphere system that give rise to El Ni?o events.     

Reduced interannual rainfall variability in East Africa during the last ice age

Interannual rainfall variations in equatorial East Africa are tightly linked to the El Ni?o Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with more rain and flooding during El Ni?o and droughts in La Ni?a years, both having severe impacts on human habitation and food security. Here we report evidence from an annually laminated lake sediment record from southeastern Kenya for interannual to centennial-scale changes in ENSO-related rainfall variability during the last three millennia and for reductions in both the mean rate and the variability of rainfall in East Africa during the Last Glacial period. Climate model simulations support forward extrapolation from these lake sediment data that future warming will intensify the interannual variability of East Africa's rainfall.     

The Pliocene paradox (mechanisms for a permanent El Niño)

During the early Pliocene, 5 to 3 million years ago, globally averaged temperatures were substantially higher than they are today, even though the external factors that determine climate were essentially the same. In the tropics, El Ni?o was continual (or "permanent") rather than intermittent. The appearance of northern continental glaciers, and of cold surface waters in oceanic upwelling zones in low latitudes (both coastal and equatorial), signaled the termination of those warm climate conditions and the end of permanent El Ni?o. This led to the amplification of obliquity (but not precession) cycles in equatorial sea surface temperatures and in global ice volume, with the former leading the latter by several thousand years. A possible explanation is that the gradual shoaling of the oceanic thermocline reached a threshold around 3 million years ago, when the winds started bringing cold waters to the surface in low latitudes. This introduced feedbacks involving ocean-atmosphere interactions that, along with ice-albedo feedbacks, amplified obliquity cycles. A future melting of glaciers, changes in the hydrological cycle, and a deepening of the thermocline could restore the warm conditions of the early Pliocene.     

Peru coastal currents during el nino: 1976 and 1982

Year-long measurements of subsurface current and temperature on Peru's continental shelf included the onset of El Ni?o in 1976 and 1982. The Peru Coastal Undercurrent more than doubled in speed and advected anomalously warm water poleward. El Ni?o began in different seasons in 1976 and 1982, but the current and temperature responses were very similar. Acceleration of poleward flow at 10 degrees S occurred several days after sea level rose at the Galápagos Islands in October 1982, suggesting the onset of El Ni?o propagated as a Kelvin wave.     

Meteorological aspects of the el nino/southern oscillation

The single most prominent signal in year-to-year climate variability is the Southern Oscillation, which is associated with fluctuations in atmospheric pressure at sea level in the tropics, monsoon rainfall, and wintertime circulation over North America and other parts of the extratropics. Although meteorologists have known about the Southern Oscillation for more than a half-century, its relation to the oceanic El Ni?o phenomenon was not recognized until the late 1960's, and a theoretical understanding of these relations has begun to emerge only during the past few years. The past 18 months have been characterized by what is probably the most pronounced and certainly the best-documented El Ni?o/Southern Oscillation episode of the past century. In this review meteorological aspects of the time history of the 1982-1983 episode are described and compared with a composite based on six previous events between 1950 and 1975, and the impact of these new observations on theoretical interpretations of the event is discussed.