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 →
Currently (as of June 22, 2024), a phenomenon known as Atlantic Niña is brewing in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. As the Atlantic counterpart of La Niña in the Pacific, Atlantic Niña is characterized by the appearance of cold sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) in the eastern equatorial Atlantic. It is known to reduce rainfall and... Continue Reading →
Two important atmospheric jet streams that shape the extratropical zonal wind field in both hemispheres are the subtropical jet and the subpolar jet. The subtropical jet is located around 30° latitude line at the boundary between the Hadley cell and the Ferrel cell, and is predominantly a high-altitude feature. Since it is largely in thermal-wind... Continue Reading →
Ocean to Climate 