U.S. Dept. of Commerce / NOAA / OAR / ERL / PMEL / Publications

TOGA-TAO and the 1991-93 El Niño-Southern Oscillation Event

Michael J. McPhaden


Conclusion

A major goal of the TOGA program is to develop a predictive capability for short-term climate variations on time scales of seasons to a few years. By analogy with present efforts in weather prediction, achieving this goal will rely on the development of suitable dynamic climate models and the establishment of an observing system to provide initialization and validation data for model forecasts. Significant progress has been made during TOGA toward developing measurement programs to support short-term climate prediction. In particular, the TOGA-TAO Array is providing an unprecedented in situ data stream for real-time monitoring of tropical Pacific surface wind, SST, thermocline depth and upper ocean current variations. The data are of sufficient accuracy and resolution to allow for a coherent description of the basin-scale evolution of these key oceanographic variables, and important processes such as the excitation and propagation of equatorial Kelvin waves can now be observed in real-time.

Progress has likewise been made in the development of models for ENSO prediction (e.g., Barnett et al., 1988; Cane et al., 1986; Ji and Leetmaa, 1992). However, existing prediction schemes have limited forecast skill, and initialization procedures for dynamic climate forecast models have not yet been developed to take full advantage of available oceanic and atmospheric data sets. Moreover, TOGA-TAO will not be completed until 1994, so that sufficient time will not be available before the scheduled end of TOGA to evaluate critically its utility for ENSO predictions. As a result, planning is in progress to continue the TAO Array in support of the World Climate Research Program's CLIVAR (Climate Variability) study, and in support of a U.S. contribution to CLIVAR, namely the Global Ocean Atmosphere Land System (GOALS) program. GOALS and CLIVAR, research programs scheduled for the 15-year period 1995-2010, will build on the success of TOGA to understand and predict better the coupled ocean-atmosphere variability originating in the tropics on time scales of seasons to a few years. TOGA-TAO is also being considered as a contribution to the proposed Global Climate Observing System (World Meteorological Organization, 1992), the proposed Global Ocean Observing System (Joint Oceanographic Institutions, 1993), and the proposed International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRICP Task Group, 1992).

Epilogue

This article is dedicated to the late Dr. Stanley P. Hayes of NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. It was through Stan's inspiration that TOGA-TAO was conceived, and through his persistence and dedication that it was implemented. Stan's research was characterized by the innovative application of observational techniques to important problems in physical oceanography. Where suitable techniques did not exist, Stan guided the engineering developments necessary to achieve his objectives, as for example, with the ATLAS mooring. He served on steering committees for TOGA and World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE), and in 1989 was awarded NOAA's highest honor, the Department of Commerce Gold Medal, for his leadership in the EPOCS Program. In a career marked by distinction, Stan leaves a legacy of over 60 scientific publications, and a visible imprint on international climate programs being carried out today.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Ed Harrison and Bill Kessler of NOAA/PMEL, Todd Mitchell and Nick Bond of the University of Washington Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO), Roger Lukas of the University of Hawaii, and Joel Picaut of ORSTOM Nouméa, for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Dai McClurg, Paul Freitag, and Margie McCarty of NOAA/PMEL were responsible for graphics presentations, and Paul Freitag supplied TOGA island wind data. Implementation of the TOGA-TAO Array has been managed by Ms. Linda Mangum, TAO Project Manager, and Captain Otto Steffin, TAO Operations Manager, both of NOAA/PMEL. TOGA-TAO is supported in the United States by the U.S. TOGA Project Office and the EPOCS program; in Japan by the Japanese Science and Technology Agency; in France by ORSTOM; in Korea by the Korean Science and Technology Agency; and in Taiwan by the National Science Council. Production of this paper was supported by the U.S. TOGA Project Office and EPOCS. JISAO contribution number 239.


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