Feature Publication Archive
McPhaden, M.J. (2015): Playing hide and seek with El Niño. Nature Clim. Change, 5, 791–795, doi:10.1038/nclimate2775.
The scientific community and the popular press were abuzz in early 2014 with the possibility that a “monster” El Niño was incubating in the tropical Pacific. Oceanic and atmospheric conditions then suggested similarities with the onset of the 1997/98 El Niño, which is the strongest on record. Model forecasts from the early months of 2014 were also consistent in predicting development of El Niño conditions as the year progressed.
But then the big El Niño went bust, defying conventional wisdom and the computer model forecasts. Why this happened is a mystery that has left the experts... more »
Cai, W., A. Santoso, G. Wang, S.-W. Yeh, S.-I. An, K.M. Cobb, M. Collins, E. Guilyardi, F.-F. Jin, J.-S. Kug, M. Lengaigne, M.J. McPhaden, K. Takahashi, A. Timmermann, G. Vecchi, M. Watanabe, and L. Wu (2015): ENSO and greenhouse warming. Nature Clim. Change, 5, 849–859, doi: 10.1038/nclimate2743.
The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant climate phenomenon affecting extreme weather conditions worldwide. Its response to greenhouse warming has challenged scientists for decades, despite model agreement on projected changes in mean state. Recent studies have provided new insights into the elusive links between changes in ENSO and in the mean state of the Pacific climate.
Accelerated equatorial Pacific warming, particularly in the east, is expected to induce extreme rainfall in the eastern equatorial Pacific and extreme equatorward swings of the Pacific convergence... more »
Johnson, G.C., and A.R. Parsons (2015): Overview. In State of the Climate in 2014, Global Oceans. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 96(7), S59.
Every year NOAA leads a team of international scientists in issuing a report on the state of the climate in the year just passed, published as a supplement to Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Ten Federal, JISAO, and JIMAR scientists resident at PMEL co-authored four of twelve sections and a sidebar in the Global Oceans chapter and a section in the Arctic chapter for the State of the Climate in 2014 report, published in July 2015. In addition, Dr. Gregory... more »
Mathis et al., 2015. Special Issue on Emerging Themes in Ocean Acidification Science. Oceanography, 28(2), 10–228.
In June 2015,Oceanography released a special issue on Emerging Themes in Ocean Acidification Science. The papers in this issue were written in conjunction with the 2013 Ocean Acidification Principle Investigator’s Meeting, organized by the Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Project’s Ocean Acidification subcommittee and sponsored by NSF, NOAA, and NASA. This meeting brought together the US-funded OA research community to assess the state of the science... more »
Chiodi, A.M., and D.E. Harrison (2015): Equatorial Pacific easterly wind surges and the onset of La Niña events. J. Climate, 28 (2), 776-792, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00227.1.
It has become well accepted that Westerly Wind Events (WWE) lasting for about a week play a fundamental role in the onset and maintenance of El Niño events in the tropical Pacific. In this paper we show that there are wind events of similar size and duration that appear to play a similar role in the onset and maintenance of La Niña events. We call these wind events Easterly Wind Surges (EWSs). They have been previously overlooked in studies of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon because they do not stand out in wind (speed) records in the same way that WWEs do; only when looking at... more »