NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
This work is funded in part by contract CMRC 50-DKNA-5-00015/C from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and printed with funds from U.S. Department of Agriculture grant 403K06506534. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NOAA or any of its sub-agencies.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 96-70442
International Standard Book Number 0-309-05342-0
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COVER ART: Reproduction of the batik “Sunday Morning” by Susan Schneider, from the collection of Edward Sarachik. Ms. Schneider runs her own batik card business in Seattle, Washington. Her father, Harry Wexler, was Chief Scientist of the U.S. Weather Bureau. Her uncle, Jerome Namais (member of the National Academy of Sciences), was a major developer of long-range weather prediction and a pioneer in the study of short-term climate variations. “Sunday Morning” is based on a black and white photograph from the 1890s of residents in the town of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, heading for church. The TOGA Panel selected it for the cover to evoke the beginnings of a new age of climate prediction.
Copyright 1996 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
ADVISORY PANEL FOR THE TROPICAL OCEANS AND GLOBAL ATMOSPHERE PROGRAM (TOGA PANEL)
EDWARD S. SARACHIK (Chair),
University of Washington, Seattle
ANTONIO J. BUSALACCHI,
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
ROBERT E. DICKINSON,
University of Arizona, Tucson
STEVEN ESBENSEN,
Oregon State University, Corvallis
DAVID HALPERN,
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
DENNIS L. HARTMANN,
University of Washington, Seattle
ROBERT A. KNOX,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California
ANTS LEETMAA,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Camp Springs, Maryland
ROGER LUKAS,
University of Hawaii, Honolulu
STEPHEN E. ZEBIAK,
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, New York
Staff
MARK D. HANDEL, Senior Program Officer
ELLEN F. RICE, Reports Officer
THERESA M. FISHER, Administrative Assistant
MARK BOEDO, Project Assistant
CLIMATE RESEARCH COMMITTEE
ERIC J. BARRON (Chair),
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
DAVID S. BATTISTI,
University of Washington, Seattle
RUSS E. DAVIS,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California
ROBERT E. DICKINSON,
University of Arizona, Tucson
THOMAS R. KARL,
National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, North Carolina
JEFFREY T. KIEHL,
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
CLAIRE L. PARKINSON,
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
STEVEN W. RUNNING,
University of Montana, Missoula
KARL E. TAYLOR,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California
Ex Officio Members
DOUGLAS G. MARTINSON,
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, New York
EDWARD S. SARACHIK,
University of Washington, Seattle
SOROOSH SOROOSHIAN,
University of Arizona, Tucson
PETER J. WEBSTER,
University of Colorado, Boulder
W. LAWRENCE GATES,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California
Staff
WILLIAM A. SPRIGG, Director
MARK D. HANDEL, Senior Program Officer
DORIS BOUADJEMI, Administrative Assistant
KELLY NORSINGLE, Senior Project Assistant
BOARD ON ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES AND CLIMATE
JOHN A. DUTTON (Chair),
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
ERIC J. BARRON,
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
WILLIAM L. CHAMEIDES,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
CRAIG E. DORMAN, consultant,
Arlington, Virginia
FRANCO EINAUDI,
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
MARVIN A. GELLER,
State University of New York, Stony Brook
PETER V. HOBBS,
University of Washington, Seattle
WITOLD F. KRAJEWSKI,
The University of Iowa, Iowa City
MARGARET A. LeMONE,
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
DOUGLAS K. LILLY,
University of Oklahoma, Norman
RICHARD S. LINDZEN,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
GERALD R. NORTH,
Texas A&M University, College Station
EUGENE M. RASMUSSON,
University of Maryland, College Park
ROBERT J. SERAFIN,
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
Staff
WILLIAM A. SPRIGG, Director
H. FRANK EDEN, Senior Program Officer
MARK D. HANDEL, Senior Program Officer
DAVID H. SLADE, Senior Program Officer
ELLEN F. RICE, Reports Officer
DORIS BOUADJEMI, Administrative Assistant
KELLY NORSINGLE, Senior Project Assistant
COMMISSION ON GEOSCIENCES, ENVIRONMENT, AND RESOURCES
GEORGE M. HORNBERGER (Chair),
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
PATRICK R. ATKINS,
Aluminum Company of America, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
JAMES P. BRUCE,
Canadian Climate Program Board, Ottawa, Ontario
WILLIAM L. FISHER,
University of Texas, Austin
JERRY F. FRANKLIN,
University of Washington, Seattle
DEBRA KNOPMAN,
Progressive Foundation, Washington, D.C.
PERRY L. McCARTY,
Stanford University, California
JUDITH E. McDOWELL,
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts
S. GEORGE PHILANDER,
Princeton University, New Jersey
RAYMOND A. PRICE,
Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario
THOMAS C. SCHELLING,
University of Maryland, College Park
ELLEN SILBERGELD,
University of Maryland Medical School, Baltimore
VICTORIA J. TSCHINKEL,
Landers and Parsons, Tallahassee, Florida
Staff
STEPHEN RATTIEN, Executive Director
STEPHEN D. PARKER, Associate Executive Director
MORGAN GOPNIK, Assistant Executive Director
GREGORY SYMMES, Reports Officer
JAMES MALLORY, Administrative Officer
SANDI FITZPATRICK, Administrative Associate
MARQUITA SMITH, PC Analyst
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
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The National Research Council (NRC) was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and interim vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
PREFACE
El Niño and the Southern Oscillation, collectively called ENSO, are primary drivers of interannual climate variability. Prior to the initiation of the Tropical Oceans and Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Program in 1985, scientists had only the beginnings of a picture of ENSO. They had scant, scattered means of observing it. Ocean observations, in particular, were usually available after considerable delay. Scientists had only begun to understand the coupled dynamics of the ocean and atmosphere system; most previous research had concentrated on either the oceanic or the atmospheric response to a specified forcing by the other fluid. In 1982, the onset of the largest ENSO warm event (El Niño) of this century was not even recognized, let alone predicted, while in its early stage of development because available observations were so meager, aerosols from the eruption of El Chichon had contaminated satellite-based observations, means of effective data dissemination and interpretation were so lacking, and predictive models were so rudimentary. Research efforts at that time were still strongly divided between meteorologists and oceanographers, and the disciplinary barriers between them were significant. Useful ENSO predictions were a distant dream.
The TOGA program, which began 1 January 1985 and ended 31 December 1994, addressed the important challenges of ENSO prediction. As the TOGA decade closed, the improvement in our understanding of short-term climatic fluctuations on our planet was clearly evident. A substantial network for oceanic and atmospheric observations is in place in the tropical Pacific and, to a lesser extent, in the other tropical oceans. Most of the data from that network are transmitted immediately and are accessible to researchers shortly after collection. Models have improved in quality. Regular predictions of aspects of ENSO are now made by a number of groups worldwide. Currently, these predictions are significantly better than predictions based on climatology for only limited geographic regions. Even in regions where skill is greatest, forecasts still fail. Nevertheless, the predictions are demonstrably skillful, enough so that they are taken seriously and used to guide national economic strategies and choices in some of the countries most affected by ENSO.
International efforts to institutionalize short-term climate predictions for practical, regionally tailored ends are taking shape and expanding. An international community of scientists with firm roots in both meteorology and oceanography has come of age, learned how to talk to each other, and joined forces to carry out major cooperative research efforts. TOGA, in many respects, now represents a model for international and interdisciplinary scientific research.
In view of such success, holding to the end date of 1994 for TOGA that was scheduled somewhat arbitrarily in 1985 may seem odd or rigid. The decision to do so, however, was not made casually. It necessitated thought about how to sustain certain activities, such as the observing system, that were nourished by TOGA but that must now remain healthy under other stewardship. However, formally ending TOGA has also ignited a valuable, energetic reassessment of the state of the art in understanding and predicting all aspects of seasonal-to-interannual climate variations. This assessment has involved a broad community of scientists. The initial planning for the new Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System (GOALS) program, an ambitious attempt to extend our knowledge of ENSO and other short-term variations of climate, has flowed from this reassessment (see NRC 1994b). New scientists have joined the process of shaping GOALS, bringing new ideas and fresh enthusiasm. If the end of TOGA has been unsettling and worrisome, it has been reinvigorating as well.
The National Research Council's Advisory Panel for the Tropical Oceans and Global Atmosphere Program has played an active and very important role in shaping and guiding the U.S. contributions to TOGA. The panel as a group as well as some of its members as individuals, have been closely associated with the program. The Climate Research Committee, as the “parent” of the TOGA Panel, has asked the Panel to write a retrospective on TOGA, its accomplishments, and its shortcomings, with an emphasis on the U.S. contributions. Our hope is that this report, in conjunction with the original planning reports (NRC 1983, 1986) and mid-term assessments of scientific progress (NRC 1990), will provide a valuable milestone on the scientific path from TOGA, through GOALS, into future efforts to comprehend and cope with Earth's climatic machinery.
Eric Barron, Chair
Climate Research Committee
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The TOGA Panel would like to thank David Battisti, Grant Branstator, Inez Fung, Richard Gammon, Michael Halpert, D. Edmunds Harrison, Mojib Latif, Gary Mitchum, James Moum, John Marsh, Michael McPhaden, Robert Molinari, James W. Murray, Peter Niiler, Kevin Trenberth, Peter Webster, and Yuan Zhang for contributions to this report, and also the staff of the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, especially Mark Handel, for their diligence in preparing this report for publication. The current members of the panel are grateful to the many previous members (listed in Appendix A), who helped design the TOGA Program and provided part of the foundation for this report.
Edward Sarachik, Chair
TOGA Panel
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. |
Schematic of ENSO |
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Figure 2. |
Correlations of annual-mean sea-level pressure with the pressure at Darwin, Australia |
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Figure 3. |
The major conceptual components of TOGA |
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Figure 4. |
Funding for U.S. TOGA |
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Figure 5. |
The TOGA In Situ Pacific Basin Observing System |
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Figure 6. |
An ATLAS (Autonomous Temperature Line Acquisition System) Mooring |
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Figure 7. |
Climatology of the near-surface equatorial ocean at 110°W |
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Figure 8. |
Composite structure of the intensive operation period for TOGA COARE |
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Figure 9. |
Monthly-mean anomalies of sea surface temperature averaged over 5°S to 5°N during the TOGA years |
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Figure 10. |
Correlations for predictions of anomalies of equatorial sea surface temperature using fully coupled atmosphere-ocean models |
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Figure 11. |
Evolution of sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific |
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Figure 12. |
Total field and anomalies of sea surface temperature for January 1992 |
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Figure 13. |
Analyses of interannual and lower frequency variations of sea surface temperature throughout the entire Pacific |
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Figure 14. |
Organization of TOGA within the United States |
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Figure 15. |
International organization for TOGA |
LIST OF TABLES