Abstract
El Nino, a period of unusually warm surface water in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, is shown to be related to variations in several components of the atmospheric moisture budget over much of the basin. Changes in both the ocean temperatures and the moisture terms are diagnosed using an analysis of about 5 × 106 individual marine weather reports for the period 1957–76. From these data, year-month means were calculated for each 5° latitude by 5° longitude grid of sea surface temperature, surface latent heat flux, and surface horizontal vapour flux divergence.
The analyses indicate that El Niño events are associated with increased surface latent heat fluxes of up to about 40 W m−2 over much of the eastern Pacific basin. The increases tend to follow those for sea surface temperature by up to several months, the shortest lags being for regions near the equator. El Niño is also found to be associated with an equatorward movement of the eastern Pacific convergence zone which has its mean near 8°N. There are some suggestions of systematic variations in the position of the Southern Convergence Zone near 25°S over several parts of the basin. The relationship of these changes to observed variations in the strength of the South Pacific High is briefly discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Horel, J.D. & Wallace, J.M. 1981 Planetary scale atmospheric phenomena associated with the interannual variability of sea surface temperature in the equatorial Pacific. Mon. Weath. Rev., 109, 813–829.
Julian, P.R. & Chervin, R.M. 1978 A study of the southern oscillation and Walker circulation phenomenon. Mon. Weath. Rev., 106., 1433–1451.
Quinn, W.H. & Burt, W.V. 1972 Use of the southern oscillation in weather prediction. J. appl. Met., 11, 616–628.
Trenberth, K.E. 1976 Spatial and temporal variations of the Southern Oscillation. Q. Jl R. met. Soc., 102, 639–653.
Weare, B.C. 1982 El Niño and Tropical Pacific Ocean surface temperatures. J. phys. Ocean. [In the press].
Weare, B.C., Navato, A.R. & Newell, R.E. 1976 Empirical orthogonal analysis of Pacific sea surface temperatures. J. phys. Ocean., 6, 671–678.
Weare, B.C., Strub, P.T. & Samuel, M.D. 1981 Annual mean heat fluxes over the tropical Pacific Ocean. J. phys. Ocean., 11, 705–717.
White, W.B., Hasunuma, K. & Meyers, G. 1979 Large-scale secular trend in steric sea level over the western North Pacific from 1954–1974. J. Geodetic Soc. Japan, 25, 49–55.
Wyrtki, K. 1975 El Niño - The dynamic response of the equatorial Pacific Ocean to atmospheric forcing. J. phys. Ocean., 5, 572–584.
Wyrtki, K. 1979 The response of sea surface topography to the 1976 El Niño. J. phys. Ocean., 9, 1223–1231.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1983 D. Reidel Publishing Company
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Weare, B.C. (1983). Moisture Variations Associated with EL NiÑo Events. In: Street-Perrott, A., Beran, M., Ratcliffe, R. (eds) Variations in the Global Water Budget. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6954-4_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6954-4_21
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-009-6956-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-6954-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive