An Ocean Climate Research Strategy (1984) / Chapter Skim
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'THE INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY OF THE TROPICAL OCEAN AND THE GLOBAL ATMOSPHERE'
'THE INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY OF THE TROPICAL OCEAN AND THE GLOBAL ATMOSPHERE'
Pages 11-19
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From page 11... ...
The largest oceanic oscillation is El Nino, an anomalous warming off the coast of South America. El Nino brings destruction to the fisheries off Peru and Ecuador.
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From page 12... ...
El Nino also brings heavy coastal rains that cause flooding and damage crops along the South American coast. The Southern Oscillation has climate significance because it is a strong signal and because of its time scale.
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From page 13... ...
suggest that the patterns of correlation may be blurred images resulting from the superposition of an ensemble of sharper patterns that correspond to the various states of the equatorial ocean and atmosphere. If so, then a sharper specification of the equatorial sea-surface temperature and of tropical rainfall might, with effective modeling of the processes of teleconnection, lead to better advance climate anomaly predictions over the United States than is now possible.
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From page 14... ...
. (Other names for components of the same investigation are the El Nino and the Southern Oscillation Experiment (ENSO)
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From page 15... ...
2. To identify the processes that control the development and time evolution of the thermal anomalies associated with the Southern Oscillation and the El Nino in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
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From page 16... ...
In a system where processes are known to be tied to the annual cycle, it is particularly risky to infer causality simply from correlations and timing. Statistically significant correlations can be found among the Southern Oscillation Index, equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperature anomalies, the El Nino, and wintertime temperature and precipitation anomalies over parts of North America.
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From page 17... ...
What differentiates a major El Nino from a minor one? These basic questions will not all be answered in the early stages of TOGA.
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From page 18... ...
Particularly if the United States should decide to restrict its TOGA program to the Pacific Ocean, it would probably be unwise to take a firm international position before exploring the consequences. An El Nino-like phenomenon sometimes occurs in the tropical Atlantic, but our observations are not adequate to be certain about its existence.
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From page 19... ...
The opportunity to study this phenomenon should not be missed, and the United States should support a major TOGA experiment in the Pacific. At the same time, complementary TOGA research activities should be supported in the Atlantic and Indian oceans, though it may be that other nations will play the principal role there.
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