Coral bleaching events have been reported over the Great Barrier Reef during La Niña events and the neutral phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, when large-scale sea-surface temperatures may be cooler than normal. How does this occur?
The ocean’s much larger heat capacity acts as “memory” suppressing the atmosphere’s “high-frequency variability” (over time scales of weeks) while producing oceanic motions that vary over longer time scales. This paradigm aims to explain how low-frequency variability emerges in the ocean. But, recently, this paradigm has been challenged.
The Northern Australia Climate Program (NACP) is an innovative drought and climate variability research, development, and extension (RD&E) program to enhance business resilience and build capacity to manage climate risk across the northern Australian red meat industry.
In this study, CLEX researchers and colleagues showed that the North Atlantic sea-surface temperature response to ENSO is nonlinear with respect to the strength of the sea-surface temperature forcing in the tropical Pacific.
El Niño effects are communicated to the Indian Ocean via both large‐scale atmospheric circulation changes over the southern tropical ocean basin and via disturbances to sea‐levels along the coast of Western Australia. CLEX researchers investigated these remote ENSO influences in a state‐of‐the‐art climate model.
The researchers analysed the performance of the ACCESSS1 seasonal forecast model to predict the SPCZ position and rainfall over the period 1990-2012. ACCESSS1 performed better in simulating the SPCZ than the previous model, POAMA.
In a new study published in Nature Scientific Reports, a group of oceanographers, atmospheric scientists, ecologists and fisheries experts got together to identify the most severe marine heatwaves over recent decades. The objective was to understand what triggered these events and led to their ultimate demise.
As a La Niña event intensifies in the Pacific, bringing increased rain to parts of Australia and a powerful hurricane season to the Tropical Atlantic, a new book reveals the dynamics and impacts of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the irregular cycle that switches the Pacific Ocean between these cool La Niña and warm El Niño events.
CLEX researchers find the inclusion of upper South Pacific Ocean variability significantly improved the predictions of ENSO and PDO modes in simple linear inverse models.