|
Articles of interest to the ENSO community
gleaned from publications or submitted by readers.
- About The New ENSO Signal
- Reducing the Impact of Environmental Emergencies Through Early Warning and Preparedness
- El Niño Marine Impacts
- The Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) Array
- WMO, IADB Establish El Niño Program
- WMO Retrospective
- El Niño 1997- 98 Impacts in the United States
- El Niño 1997- 98 Impacts in Australia
- The Top 10 El Niño Events of the Twentieth Century
- Queensland Climate Applications Research
- Current State of the Tropical Pacific
- Pacific ENSO Update
- International Research Institute
- Journals Online
- Famine Early Warning System Tracking El Niño/La Niña
- Comprehensive El Niño Bibliography
- Kids, El Niño, and the Web
About The New ENSO Signal
Issue #13 of The ENSO Signal is produced at NCAR's Environmental and Societal Impacts Group (ESIG) in Boulder, Colorado. We are interested in knowing what news and views that you, as a reader, would like to see addressed in this newsletter. The continued aim of the Signal will be to focus on issues related to the ENSO cycle and its impacts on ecosystems and societies. The newsletter will also continue to be available on line at www.esig.ucar.edu/signal/ (to receive only the web version, you may sign up on the web site).
D. Jan Stewart
Managing Editor
The ENSO Signal
ESIG/NCAR
PO Box 3000
Boulder, CO 80307 USA
Tel: 303-497-8134
Fax: 303-497-8125
Email: enso@ucar.edu
The first 12 issues, produced by NOAA's Office of Global Programs, are on line at www.ogp.noaa.gov/library/library.htm
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
Reducing the Impact of Environmental Emergencies
Through Early Warning and Preparedness
UNEP, in cooperation with NCAR, was awarded a grant from the UN Fund for International Partnerships to carry out a 19-month study that began in mid-1999 to assess and review the impacts of the 1997-98 El Niño, as well as the climate-related early warning and natural disaster preparedness programs in selected countries. The objective is to identify coping mechanisms for the next event. The 16 case studies include China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Panama Canal, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. The project's core partners and advisors are representatives of the World Meteor-ological Organization, UNEP, UNU (United Nations University), and the IDNDR (International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction). The first meeting of the team leaders was held in Geneva, Switzerland, 8-10 July 1999. It is available on line at ccb.ucar.edu/un/geneva.html. For more information, contact Principal Investigator Michael Glantz, NCAR/ ESIG, Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307, USA; tel: 303-497-8119; fax: 303-497-8125; email glantz@ucar.edu
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
El Niño Marine Impacts
A two-decade warming of the California Current has combined with more frequent and intense El Niño events to damage broad swaths of coastal and ocean life. John McGowan, a biological oceanographer at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, noted big changes in the biological community structure due to these episodic warmings including kelp bed diminishment, lower fish catches and a severe decline in Pacific chinook salmon in Northern California. For more information, contact John McGowan, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, 8602 La Jolla Shores Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037; tel: 858-534-2830.
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
The Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) Array
The TAO Array consists of about 70 moored buoys spanning the equatorial Pacific. It measures oceanographic and surface meteorological variables critical for improved detection, understanding and prediction of seasonal-to-interannual climate variations originating in the tropics. These buoys provide climate researchers, weather predication centers, and scientists around the world with real-time data from the tropical Pacific. NOAA established an excellent TAO Web site which provides real-time data from the buoy system: www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
WMO, IADB Establish El Niño Program
On 22 September 1999 in Geneva, Switzerland, G.O.P. Obasi, Director General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and Mr. Enrique Iglesias, President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) signed documents for a $1,538,000 program to strengthen the capacity of Latin American and Caribbean nations to reduce the effects of El Niño through better scientific monitoring and meteorological forecasting. Studies will identify El Niño impacts on vulnerable groups. For more information, contact Mr. Taysir M. Al-Ghanem, Information and Public Affairs Office, WMO, 7 bis, avenue de la Paix, PO Box 2300, CH-1211, Geneva 2, Switzerland; tel: 41-22-730-8315; fax: 41-22-733-2829; email ipa@gateway.wmo.ch; web: www.wmo.ch/
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
WMO Retrospective
The WMO has prepared The 1997-1998 El Niño Event: A Scientific and Technical Retrospective as a contribution to the UN Task Force on El Niño for implementa-tion of UN General Assembly Resolutions 52/200 and 53/185. The Retrospective was agreed upon at a conference in Guayaquil, Ecuador, 9-13 November 1998. This publication will serve as a base of information for further analysis to understand El Niño and El Niño-related impacts. To receive a copy of this publication (WMO No. 905), please contact WMO, Information and Public Affairs Office, 7 bis, avenue de la Paix, PO Box 2300, CH-1211, Geneva 2, Switzerland, tel: 41-22-730-8314; fax: 41-22-733-2829; email ipa@gateway.wmo.ch; web: www.wmo.ch/
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
El Niño 1997- 98 Impacts in the United States
Joseph Barsugli, Jeffrey Whitaker, Andrew Loughe, Prashant Sardesh-mukh, and Zoltan Toth addressed the question "Can an individual weather event be attributed to El Niño?" They used quantitative ensembles of medium-range weather forecasts made with and without tropical sea surface temperature anomalies. They also used the synoptic El Niño signal to attribute aspects of individual weather events to El Niño. They focused on three events: the January 1998 ice storm in the north-eastern part of North America, the February 1998 rains in central and southern California, and the October 1997 blizzard in Colorado. This represents an important research effort to identify El Niño's influence on weather events. See Barsugli et al., 1999: The effect of the 1997-98 El Niño on individual large-scale weather events. Bulletin of the AMS, 80(7), 1399-1412.
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
El Niño 1997- 98 Impacts in Australia
Signs of a developing El Niño emerged during the Southern Hemisphere autumn of 1997, when the Southern Oscillation Index began a rapid decline. The heavy tropical summer rains ended abruptly in March, and high pressure swiftly became the dominant feature of weather maps. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology's National Climate Centre advised early in May 1998 of the strong chance of an El Niño episode developing. One of the most striking features of this event was that it gained intensity much more rapidly than previous episodes in terms of ocean temperature anomalies. Very dry conditions set in over most of the country. Melbourne experienced its second driest year in 140 years.
An unusual aspect of this event was the occurrence of significant rainfall in September and November 1998, in some cases turning imminent crop failure into useful yields. Although this event was the equal of the 1982-83 El Niño event, its effects on rainfall were far less severe. Damage and losses from bushfires were also much less than they might have been because of careful planning for the expected severe season. In April, when the event was near its end, widespread heavy rainfall fell over much of Australia. (Excerpted from the Bureau of Meteorology's Climate Activities in Australia 1999).
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
The Top 10 El Niño Events of the Twentieth Century
NOAA's National Climatic Data Center identified global temperature anomalies during the ten strongest El Niños of the twentieth century. El Niño events were based on work described in Livezey et al., 1997, "Teleconnective response of the Pacific-North American region atmosphere to large central equatorial Pacific SST anomalies," Journal of Climate, 10, 1787-1820. For more information, contact: Mike Crowe, NOAA/NCDC, 151 Patton Ave., Asheville, NC 28801-5001; fax: 828-271-4328; email: mcrowe@ncdc.noaa.gov
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
Queensland Climate Applications Research
The Queensland Department of Natural Resources and the University of Queensland have developed several climate research programs dealing with variability, forecasting, modeling, etc. The program overviews can be found in a publication entitled Developing Seasonal Forecasts for Australian Natural Resources Management. For more information, contact Lawrence Lau, Advanced Computational Modelling Centre, University of Queensland; tel: 61-7-3365-1349; fax: 61-7-3365-1477; email: ll@maths.uq.edu.au
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
Current State of the Tropical Pacific
Cold episode conditions (La Niña) strengthened in the tropical Pacific during December, as equatorial sea surface temperatures dropped to more than 1 C below normal between 165 W and the South American coast. This cooling was reflected by increasing negative values of all four Niño region indices, compared to those observed just a few months ago. Cold conditions have persisted since June 1998, with below-normal SSTs and reduced rainfall throughout the central equatorial Pacific. Accompanying these conditions, tropical rainfall has been above normal over large portions of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the western Pacific. It is likely that cold episode conditions will continue for the next several months. This assessment is supported by most coupled model forecasts. Weekly updates for ENSO advisories are available from the Climate Prediction Center, National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), NOAA/National Weather Service, W/NP52, Room 605, WWB, 5200 Auth Rd., Camp Springs, MD 20746-4304; web: www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/; email: wd52vk@hp31.wwb.noaa.gov
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
Pacific ENSO Update
The Pacific ENSO Update is a newsletter of the Pacific El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Applications Center, a pilot project established to conduct research and produce information products on climate variability related to the ENSO climate cycle in the United States-affiliated Pacific Islands. The newsletter supplies information for the benefit of those involved in climate-sensitive sectors. It is a quarterly publication with additional special reports on important changes in ENSO conditions. For information, contact Raymond Tanabe, Editor, Pacific ENSO Update, Pacific ENSO Applications Center (PEAC), University of Hawaii, Dept. of Meteorology, 2525 Correa Rd., HIG #350, Honolulu, HI 96791; tel: 808-956-2324; fax: 808-956-2877; email: rayt@soest.hawaii.edu; web: lumahai.soest.hawaii.edu/Enso/
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
International Research Institute
The International Research Institute for climate prediction (IRI) was established through a cooperative agreement between NOAA's Office of Global Programs and Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO). The IRI aims to continually assess and develop seasonal-to-interannual climate forecasts, and to foster the application of such climate forecasts to the explicit benefit of societies. The IRI addresses all aspects of end-to-end prediction, including model and forecast system development, experimental prediction, climate monitoring and dissemination, applications, research and training, in coordination with the international research and applications community. The IRI has collected precipitation and temperature data around the globe from October 1997 to the present. This information and more about the IRI is available at iri.ldeo.columbia.edu/iri/ or contact the Director at IRI, LDEO, Columbia University, 204 Oceanography Bldg., Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964; tel: 914-365-8368; fax: 914-364-8366.
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
Journals Online
The following American Meteorological Society (AMS) journals (starting with the January 1997 issues) can be accessed online through the AMS Web site: ams.allenpress.com/
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
- Journal of Climate
- Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
- Monthly Weather Review
- Weather and Forecasting
- Journal of Applied Meteorology
- Journal of Physical Oceanography
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
The complete articles are available in HTML and Adobe Acrobat PDF formats to subscribers. For more information about the journals or subscription details, contact the AMS, 45 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108.
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
Famine Early Warning System Tracking El Niño/La Niña
The US Agency for International Development's Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) has implemented a Web site, "Tracking El Niño/La Niña" because these events affect weather in Africa, especially southern Africa, eastern Africa, and the Horn. One of the stronger relationships (i.e., teleconnections) is between El Niño events and drought in southern Africa. This site covers the present La Niña event. Information is also provided about the 1997-98 El Niño. For more information about FEWS, contact the FEWS Project, ARD, Inc., 1611 N. Kent St., Suite 1002, Arlington, VA 22209; tel: 703-522-7722; email: info@fews.org
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
Comprehensive El Niño Bibliography
The Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies Library (COAPS) has posted a comprehensive El Niño bibliography on the Internet at www.coaps.fsu.edu/lib/biblio/enso-bib-intro.html. The bibliography is searchable by author's last name and can also be browsed page by page.
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
Kids, El Niño, and the Web
With increased media and public attention being paid El Niño, it is not surprising that Internet sites dedicated to educating students at all levels about El Niño and related issues are appearing all over the World Wide Web. A few such focused sites of particular interest are listed below:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) site for students:
www.coe.usouthal.edu/oar/html/el_nino.html
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) site for students:
airsea-www.jpl.nasa.gov/ENSO/welcome.html
The "El Niño / Earth Science Virtual Classroom" was created to aid the prospective student (junior high through grad school) to learn about the El Niño phenomena as well as earth science in general. It is a forum for students and scientists to communicate, interact, and collaborate: tqd.advanced.org/3356/main/enesvc.html
Planet Earth Science is dedicated to developing educational software that is both scientifically valid and engaging to students. Explore the site to learn more about Planet Earth Science and their flagship CD-ROM, Ocean Expeditions. Virtual reality brings the research vessel Glomar alive as students study the impact of El Niño on global weather patterns, climate, and life:
www.planearthsci.com/
The GLOBE Program (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide network of students, teachers, and scientists working together to study and understand the global environment. Students and teachers from over 7,000 schools in more than 80 countries are working with research scientists to learn more about our planet. GLOBE has a site dedicated to studies on La Niña and El Niño at: globe.fsl.noaa.gov/
The University of Illinois has developed a comprehensive El Niño instructional manual. WW2010 includes a powerful navigation system, graphics, and online curriculum featuring both student projects and classroom activities:
covis.atmos.uiuc.edu/guide/El-Nino/
Return to top of articles or to the
ENSO Signal, Issue 13 Home Page.
| 