How do we measure El Nino?
How do we measure El Nino?
There are three main ways to measure an El Niño event:
- By measuring trade winds.
- By measuring pressure and calculating the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI).
- By measuring sea surface temperature using the TAO array and calculating an index.
What are three instruments you will use to predict El Nino?
There are several means used for El Niño detection; satellites, moored ATLAS and PROTEUS buoys, drifting buoys, sea level analysis, and XBT’s. Since El Niño influences global weather patterns and affects human lives and ecosystems, prediction of an El Niño event is becoming increasingly important.
How is Nino 3.4 calculated?
Now calculate the Nino 3.4 index by subtracting the monthly climatology from the original SST data and take the mean over the spatial coordinates (the monthly anomaly of SST over the Nino3. 4 region). To recreate the Nino 3.4 plot from Trenberth requires using the matplotlib function fill_between directly.
What is the Nino 3.4 index?
The Niño 3.4 index typically uses a 5-month running mean, and El Niño or La Niña events are defined when the Niño 3.4 SSTs exceed +/- 0.4C for a period of six months or more.
Why is it called El Nino?
Fishermen off the west coast of South America were the first to notice appearances of unusually warm water that occurred at year’s end. The phenomenon became known as El Niño because of its tendency to occur around Christmas time. El Niño is Spanish for “the boy child” and is named after the baby Jesus.
Does El Nino mean more rain?
El Niño occurs when warm water builds up along the equator in the eastern Pacific. The warm ocean surface warms the atmosphere, which allows moisture-rich air to rise and develop into rainstorms. During El Niño years, such as 1997, the southeast receives more rain than average.
Is El Nino warm or cold?
El Niño (the warm phase) and La Niña (the cool phase) lead to significant differences from the average ocean temperatures, winds, surface pressure, and rainfall across parts of the tropical Pacific.
How are SST anomalies calculated?
To calculate the difference-from-average temperatures shown here, a computer program takes the monthly average temperature at each grid point, and subtracts the long-term average for that month. If the result is a positive number, the sea surface was warmer than the long-term average.
What are SST anomalies?
An anomaly is a departure from average conditions. These maps compare temperatures in a given month to the long-term average temperature of that month from 1985 through 1997. Some sea surface temperature anomalies are simply transient events, not part of a specific pattern or trend. Other anomalies are more meaningful.
What is the difference between SST and SST anomaly maps?
Sea surface temperature refers to the temperature of the top millimeter of the ocean. An anomaly is a departure from average conditions. These maps compare temperatures in a given month to the long-term average temperature of that month from 1985 through 1997.