Researching
El Niño |
Office of
Global Programs
NOAA's Office of Global Programs (OGP) leads the NOAA
Climate and Global Change Program. NOAA has the primary responsibility
within the Federal Government to routinely provide climate forecasts and
products to the Nation. OGP funds focused scientific research on El Niño
and other climate systems within NOAA and the external research community.
This research is aimed at understanding climate variability and its predictability.
Through studies in these areas, researchers coordinate activities that
jointly contribute to improved predictions and assessments of climate
variability over a continuum of time scales from season to season, year
to year, and over the course of a decade and beyond. OGP's participation
in these areas has assisted NOAA in augmenting the state of science in
the United States, guiding the development of our research efforts, and
providing valuable scientific data and information for practical use and
social and economic benefit. Check out the web site at http://www.ogp.noaa.gov/enso
Contact: Jana Goldman at (301) 713-2483
Climate Diagnostics Center
Numerous research initiatives help scientists improve future predictions
of climate events. The primary activities are located at NOAA's Climate
Diagnostic Center, located in Boulder, Colo. The CDC studies the nature
and causes of climate variations on various time scales from a month to
centuries. CDC also explores short-term climate variations including droughts
and floods over the continental United States. It also looks at global
changes associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Among
CDC's goals are to advance the understanding and predictions of ENSO,
improve monitoring and descriptions of climate variability, identify major
patterns of climate variability on decade and longer time scales and investigate
the air-sea interaction which causes much of the climate variability.
These issues are particularly important because of their devastating effects
on populations around the globe, on the economy and on the environment.
The current El Niño event provides the CDC the ideal opportunity
for additional research to improve future climate forecasts and applications.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/ENSO
Contact: Barbara McGehan at (303) 497-6288
Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory conducts scientific investigations
in physical oceanography, marine meteorology, geochemistry, and related
subjects. Located in Seattle, Wash., and Newport, Oregon. PMEL is responsible
for installing and maintaining a network of El Niño monitoring
buoys in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Real-time
measurements from the El Niño buoy network are available via
the PMEL "El Niño Theme Page" at http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/
Contact: Jana Goldman at (301) 713-2483
Hurricane Research Division
El Niño has a significant effect on Atlantic and Pacific hurricane
frequency. NOAA's Hurricane Research Division, in cooperation with academic
institutions, studies the relationship between hurricanes and climate
events such as El Niño. More information is available on the Hurricane
Research Division's home page at http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/
Contact: Jana Goldman at (301) 713-2483
NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO)
The NOAA ship Ka'imimoana, home ported in Honolulu, Hawaii, supports
oceanographic and climate research in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The
ship's primary mission is to deploy, recover, and service deep sea moorings
that measure ocean currents, ocean temperatures, and atmospheric conditions
throughout the equatorial regions of the Pacific Ocean.
The Ka'imimoana supports a series of 70 buoys known as the Tropical
Atmosphere-Ocean (TAO) array, which were first deployed as part of an
international oceanographic research program to learn how to predict the
El Niño/Southern Oscillation phenomenon. The buoys measure wind
direction and speed, air temperature and humidity, and temperature of
the ocean at the sea surface and at various depths to 500 meters. A few
buoys also measure currents, rainfall, and solar radiation. These buoys
help scientists learn more about how warm water of the equatorial Pacific
affects world-wide climate, and are providing critical data about the
current El Niño event.
As part of the NOAA research fleet, the Ka'imimoana is operated
and managed by officers and civilian staff of the Office of NOAA Corps
Operations. Information on the ship is available at http://www.pmc.noaa.gov/ka/
. Real time images and data from the ship are available at: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/kaimi/
.
Contact: Jeanne Kouhestani at (301) 713-3431 ext. 220
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Monitoring
El Niño |
National Environmental
Satellite, Data, and Information Service
NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service
operates two polar-orbiting environmental satellites that obtain data
for numerous applications. Since 1982 NESDIS has been producing sea surface
temperatures from the five-channel Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer
observations of the NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites.
NESDIS scientists are generating monthly mean rainfall charts from instruments
on board the Defense Department's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program
satellites. Measurements from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager are
particularly valuable for studying precipitation variations associated
with ENSO events. ENSOs greatly impact the global distribution of precipitation,
causing droughts in some regions and floods in others.
Contact: Pat Viets at (301) 457-5005
Satellite Products
The National Oceanographic Data Center's Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry
provides, in near-real time, data from the TOPEX/POSEIDON altimeter satellite,
which was launched in 1992 as a research mission of the American and French
space agencies. The highly accurate sea level observations provided by
TOPEX/POSEIDON are included in the weekly ocean model run of the National
Weather Service. For color maps at 10-day intervals, see: http://ibis.grdl.noaa.gov/SAT/near_rt/enso/topex_pacific.html.
Numerous satellite
charts are available that depict information relevant to the El Niño
of 1997. The most relevant are satellite-derived observations of sea surface
temperature and their associated departures from climatology -- anomalies.
These twice-weekly charts provide the highest resolution, both in space
and time, of the development [and ultimate demise] of the far-reaching
warm waters throughout much of the eastern Pacific [centered along the
equator]. The SST anomaly charts are found at: http://psbsgi1.nesdis.noaa.gov:8080/PSB/EPS/SST/climo.html
A new experimental chart depicting regions of potential coral reef bleaching
may be useful when high surface temperatures related to El Niño
invade coral reefs in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean. The chart is
available at: http://psbsgi1.nesdis.noaa.gov:8080/PSB/EPS/SST/climohot.html
Additional satellite products with relevance to ENSO are:
National Marine
Fisheries Service
The warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean has significant impact on marine
life. NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is studying the
effect of El Niño and other climate events on the marine environment.
The NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center is working with Scripps
Institution of Oceanography and NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric
Research to study California offshore waters in order to expand current
information about the impact of El Niño on marine fisheries and
the ocean environment.
Contact: (562) 980-4022
NMFS' Northwest Fisheries Science Center scientists have several
ongoing research projects that will contribute to the greater understanding
of how El Niño events impact anadromous and marine resources. For
example, beginning in 1996, Northwest Fisheries Science Center scientists
at the Newport Field Station (central Oregon coast) initiated studies
to investigate relationships among coastal upwelling, ocean conditions,
zooplankton production, and the growth and survival of coho salmon. Although
this project was not specifically designed to focus on the impacts of
El Niño, the timely start of this work (particularly the oceanographic
sampling) prior to the onset of the 1997 El Niño and continued
monitoring during and after the event should provide important information
on the impacts of El Niño on coastal productivity.
As part of the NMFS Northwest Fisheries Science Center's ongoing
stock assessments for west coast groundfish, staff will continue annual
fishery monitoring and periodic surveys to estimate the new generations
of young fish in this commercially important species group. These data
form a time series that can be used to explore relationships of species
abundance before, during, and after the 1997 El Niño. Further,
in response to El Niño, the 1998 summer survey for Pacific whiting
will be adjusted to account for more northerly migration.
As part the long-term investigation of salmon predator/prey interactions
in the nearshore ocean, NMFS Northwest Fisheries Science Center
scientists are conducting annual surveys of zooplankton distribution from
Grays Harbor, Wash., to Cape Blanco, Ore. A primary focus of research
is to quantify the abundance and distribution of northern anchovy (using
an egg production index) and relate this to salmonid productivity. The
time-series of zooplankton composition and distribution over this large
coastal area will provide an important data set for prospective analyses
of the impacts of El Niño.
NMFS Northwest
Fisheries Science Center researchers also are investigating environmental
factors affecting the location, size, and dynamics of toxic algal blooms
and the elements associated with toxin production. Associated with these
studies are numerous opportunities to increase the geographic scope and
frequency of sampling and to greatly improve the ability to increase understanding
of the ecology of harmful algal bloom in relation to El Niño events.
The NMFS Northwest Fisheries Science Center staff are investigating
the distribution and severity of infectious fish diseases along the Oregon
coast. The increased frequency and magnitude of Vibrio infections appear
associated with the warming of sea surface temperatures experienced on
the U.S. west coast in the past two months, coinciding with the El Niño.
Contact: Brian Gorman (206) 526-6613 or Janet Sears (206) 526-6172.
The NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Center scientists will study
the significance of increased rainfall resulting from El Niño and
its effects on Gulf of Mexico fisheries productivity next spring, especially
on pink and brown shrimp throughout the Gulf. In addition, agency scientists
hope to determine whether increased freshwater river runoff creates an
environment for algal blooms (hypoxia) in the Gulf of Mexico from the
Mississippi River mouth westward along the coast to Texas.
Contact: Chris Smith at (727) 570-5301
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Predicting
El Niño |
National
Weather Service
Many different offices within the National Weather Service are actively
engaged in the current El Niño event, providing the nation with climate
and weather warnings, forecasts and information. Several key offices follow.
The Climate Prediction Center, located in Camp Springs, Md., provides
climate services to users in the government, the research community, the
private industry and the public. The CPC currently issues monthly El Niño/Southern
Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Advisories, as well as climate outlooks for
the coming season. All the data is available via the Internet at http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/index.html
Knowledge of ENSO also is applied to multi seasonal climate outlooks out
to 13 months in the future. Information about flood events as they occur
is available from local forecast offices (http://www.nws.noaa.gov)
and the Hydrologic Information Center at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hic/index.html
In addition, NWS field offices and River Forecast Centers are also working
with local communities about the possible associated impacts of El Niño
and preparedness efforts. Current weather information or other background
on the National Weather Service is available at http://www.nws.noaa.gov
Contact: Carmeyia Gillis at (301) 713-8000, ext. 7163 |