This blog post and the “Deep Dive” podcast on a paper “Tropics-wide intraseasonal oscillations” by Bao et al. (2025) was created by NotebookLM. Deep Dive Podcast “Earth's Global Climate Heartbeat The TWISO Cycle” powered by NotebookLM: 1.0 Introduction: The Stable Tropics Aren't So Stable When we think about the climate of the tropics, we tend... Continue Reading →
Seasonal hurricane outlooks, such as those issued by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, Colorado State University (Klotzbach et al., 2017), European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, and University of Arizona (Davis and Zeng, 2019), produce skillful (i.e.,. better than climatology) seasonal forecasts of overall North Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) activity. Such forecasts are possible because seasonal... Continue Reading →
The southwestern United States (US) and Northern Mexico experienced their longest stretch of record-breaking heat wave in the summer of 2023 from mid-June to early August, affecting over 100 million people, causing over 200 deaths, and $14.5 billion in economic loss. In Phoenix, Arizona, for example, the heat wave lasted for 31 days from 30... Continue Reading →
Atlantic Niña is a natural climate pattern characterized by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Atlantic Ocean, appearing predominantly in June-August. It is considered the 'cold phase' of the Atlantic Zonal Mode, the leading mode of tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature variability in June-August, similar to how La Niña is the cold phase... Continue Reading →
Atlantic Niña is a natural climate pattern characterized by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Atlantic Ocean. It’s considered the 'cold phase' of what oceanographers call the Atlantic Zonal Mode, similar to how La Niña is the cold phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the Pacific. Looking at the latest NOAA... Continue Reading →
I asked Gemini (Flash 2.5) about the signal-to-noise paradox regarding the North Atlantic Oscillation, which is one of the emerging new ideas (or concepts) in climate research. Here is the reply. Yes, I am familiar with the signal-to-noise paradox, especially as it relates to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). It's a significant and intriguing challenge... Continue Reading →
Tropical cyclone (TC) activity results in substantial loss of life and property damage. While the Atlantic basin has experienced a pronounced increase in accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) and the number of TCs over the past 50 years, TC-resolving climate models project a slight decrease in TC frequency throughout the 21st century (e.g., Roberts et al.,... Continue Reading →
Heatwaves usually come with dry conditions because the regions under the so-called heat dome, which is typically responsible for severe heatwave events, are deprived of moisture and rainfall. However, in the southern US states under semi-tropical environments, "moist" heatwave events may occur, causing both the temperature and humidity stresses on human physiology. But, you may... Continue Reading →
During the satellite era (1979-present), the tropical Pacific Ocean has warmed significantly less than the other tropical oceans in response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs). This La Niña-like warming trend in observations is in disagreement with the El Niño-like warming trend projected by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) models for both the 20th and... Continue Reading →
According to the recharge-discharge oscillator theory (Jin, 1997), the leading mode of tropical Pacific upper ocean heat content anomalies is a predictor (or a precursor) for the onset of El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) at the interannual time scale. A new study published in Nature (Zhao et al., 2024) utilized multiple global sea surface... Continue Reading →
Ocean to Climate 