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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

The possible link between net surface heating and el nino

Three diagnostic analyses are described which strongly suggest the importance of local net surface heating in the life history of the large-scale, air-sea phenomenon centered in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, commonly called El Ni?o. These analyses rely upon monthly marine weather summaries for the period 1957 to 1976. In the first, correlations and coherence spectra were calculated which show a strong link between the net surface heat flux and sea-surface temperature variations over the eastern equatorial Pacific. The second analysis, also based upon the use of coherence spectra, indicates a sea temperature precursor in the eastern ocean near 25 degrees S which precedes sea temperature changes near the El Ni?o focus near 5 degrees S. Since the link between the two regions would require ocean advective velocities that appear to be unreasonably large, this analysis also suggests the importance of atmospheric forcing through the surface heat flux. In the third analysis a proxy variable is described that seems to be a reasonable indicator of the overall effect of ocean dynamics on the temperature of the El Ni?o core region. A composite analysis of the four El Ni?o events of 1957, 1965, 1972, and 1976 suggests that local surface heating is important during the early part of an event, whereas dynamical factors dominate later.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Super ENSO and global climate oscillations at millennial time scales

The late Pleistocene history of seawater temperature and salinity variability in the western tropical Pacific warm pool is reconstructed from oxygen isotope (delta18O) and magnesium/calcium composition of planktonic foraminifera. Differentiating the calcite delta18O record into components of temperature and local water delta18O reveals a dominant salinity signal that varied in accord with Dansgaard/Oeschger cycles over Greenland. Salinities were higher at times of high-latitude cooling and were lower during interstadials. The pattern and magnitude of the salinity variations imply shifts in the tropical Pacific ocean/atmosphere system analogous to modern El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). El Ni?o conditions correlate with stadials at high latitudes, whereas La Ni?a conditions correlate with interstadials. Millennial-scale shifts in atmospheric convection away from the western tropical Pacific may explain many paleo-observations, including lower atmospheric CO2, N2O, and CH4 during stadials and patterns of extratropical ocean variability that have tropical source functions that are negatively correlated with El Ni?o.     

El nino: a chaotic dynamical system?

Most of the principal qualitative features of the El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation phenomenon can be explained by a simple but physically motivated theory. These features are the occurrence of sea-surface warmings in the eastern equatorial Pacific and the associated trade wind reversal; the aperiodicity of these events; the preferred onset time with respect to the seasonal cycle; and the much weaker events in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The theory, in its simplest form, is a conceptual model for the interaction of just three variables, namely near-surface temperatures in the east and west equatorial ocean and a wind-driven current advecting the temperature field. For a large range of parameters, the model is naturally chaotic and aperiodically produces El Ni?o-like events. For a smaller basin, representing a smaller ocean, the events are proportionally less intense.     

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.     

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%。     

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.     

2005—2016年中国东海鲐鱼渔场的时空分布及与海表面温度的关联

根据2005—2016年7—9月中国远洋渔业数据中心提供的我国东海鲐鱼捕捞数据,结合关键因子海表面温度(sea surface temperature, SST),计算各年鲐鱼渔场经纬度重心,量化鲐鱼渔场重心的时空变化。进一步分析捕捞努力量在经度、纬度以及SST上的分布规律,并基于聚类法筛选出代表年份,评估异常气候事件对鲐鱼渔场内SST及渔场重心时空分布的影响。研究结果显示,鲐鱼渔场重心具有明显的年际和月间变化,7—9月渔场逐渐向东北方向移动,且主要分布渔场SST为25～28℃。聚类分析将各月份渔场重心分为4类,其中2007和2015年渔场分布具有显著差异。此外,鲐鱼渔场内SST与尼诺指数具有显著的正相关关系,且代表年份2007和2015年分别对应拉尼娜事件和厄尔尼诺事件,当拉尼娜事件发生时,渔场内SST上升,渔场重心逐渐北移;而厄尔尼诺事件发生时,渔场内SST下降,渔场重心主要分布在南部海域。研究表明,中国东海鲐鱼渔场时空分布受到厄尔尼诺和拉尼娜调控的海表面温度变化的显著影响。     

Biological consequences of el nino

Observations of the 1982-1983 El Ni?o make it possible to relate the anomalous ocean conditions to specific biological responses. In October 1982 upwelling ecosystems in the eastern equatorial Pacific began a series of transitions from the normal highly productive condition to greatly reduced productivity. The highly productive condition had returned by July 1983. Nutrients, phytoplankton biomass, and primary productivity are clearly regulated by the physical changes of El Ni?o. Evidence from 1982 and 1983 also suggests effects on higher organisms such as fish, seabirds, and marine mammals, but several more years of observation are required to accurately determine the magnitude of the consequences on these higher trophic levels.     

Satellite color observations of the phytoplankton distribution in the eastern equatorial pacific during the 1982-1983. El nino

Dramatic changes in the patterns of satellite-derived pigment concentrations around the Galápagos Islands during February and March 1983 are associated with unusual oceanographic conditions observed during the 1982-1983 El Ni?o. The redistribution of food resources might have contributed to the reproductive failure of seabirds and marine mammals on these islands during this El Ni?o.     

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.     

Deep ocean impact of a Madden-Julian oscillation observed by Argo floats

Using the new Argo array of profiling floats that gives unprecedented space-time coverage of the upper 2000 meters of the global ocean, we present definitive evidence of a deep tropical ocean component of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). The surface wind stress anomalies associated with the MJO force eastward-propagating oceanic equatorial Kelvin waves that extend downward to 1500 meters. The amplitude of the deep ocean anomalies is up to six times the amplitude of the observed annual cycle. This deep ocean sink of energy input from the wind is potentially important for understanding phenomena such as El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation and for interpreting deep ocean measurements made from ships.     

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.