Understanding El Niño and the Southern Oscillation
An Introduction to the Basic Dynamics
- 1st Edition - January 1, 2027
- Latest edition
- Author: Allan J. Clarke
- Language: English
Understanding El Niño and the Southern Oscillation: An Introduction to the Basic Dynamics offers an accessible yet comprehensive introduction to the complex dynamics of the El Niñ… Read more
Description
Description
Understanding El Niño and the Southern Oscillation: An Introduction to the Basic Dynamics offers an accessible yet comprehensive introduction to the complex dynamics of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) system, bridging the gap between equatorial ocean and atmospheric science for advanced students and researchers. With a foundation in fluid mechanics, this book guides readers through ENSO’s discovery, key observations, and the essential physical mechanisms at play, using both observational evidence and theoretical models to clarify the coupled ocean-atmosphere interactions that drive ENSO events. Covering topics from equatorial dynamics and teleconnections to prediction models and the impacts of ENSO on marine life, El Niño also addresses the effects of global warming on the equatorial Pacific and future climate expectations, making it an indispensable resource for students and researchers learning and forecasting the world’s most significant short-term climate signal.
Key features
Key features
- Provides step-by-step introduction to ENSO with physical explanations backed by theory derived in the text to facilitate understanding of the major short-term climate signal on the earth
- Contains up-to-date research, observational data, and theoretical models, ensuring readers are equipped with the latest knowledge for advanced study and climate prediction
- Offers practical insights into ENSO prediction methods and real-world climate impacts, helping students and researchers apply their understanding to scientific and environmental challenges
Readership
Readership
Graduate students and researchers studying coupled ocean-atmosphere dynamics for the major short term climate signal on the earth, oceanographers
Table of contents
Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. ENSO in the Tropical Pacific
2.1 Overview
2.2 Spatial Patterns of ENSO in the Tropical Pacific
2.3 Seasonally phase-locked time series structure of major ENSO indices
2.4 A Physical Explanation for El Niño
2.5 A Physical Explanation for the Seasonally Phase-locked Structure of El Niño
3. Equatorial Ocean Waves
3.1 Overview
3.2 The Linear Stratified Ocean Model
3.3 Constant Depth Ocean Dynamics in terms of Vertical Modes
3.4 Zero Vertical Velocity and Zero Perturbation Pressure Bottom Boundary Conditions
3.5 Equatorial Waves
4. Equatorial Wave Reflection from Pacific Ocean Boundaries
4.1 Overview
4.2 Wave Reflection at the Western Pacific Ocean Boundary
4.3 Wave Reflection at the Eastern Pacific Ocean Boundary
4.4 Why Zonal Interannual Equatorial Flow Leads El Niño
5. Wind-Forced Equatorial Wave Theory and the Equatorial Pacific Ocean Response to ENSO Wind Forcing
5.1 Overview
5.2 The Forced Wave Model
5.3 Model Solutions for General Low-Frequency Large-Scale Wind Forcing
5.4 The Yoshida Jet
5.5 Equatorial Rays and Equatorial Beams
5.6 Upper Equatorial Pacific Ocean Response to Idealized ENSO Wind Forcing
5.7 Observed Low-Frequency Behavior of the Equatorial Pacific Sea Level and Thermocline
5.8 Why Equatorial Warm Water Volume is an El Niño Predictor and Why it Can Fail
5.9 An Equatorial Zonal Acceleration ENSO Predictor
5.10 Conclusion
6. Sea Surface Temperature, Deep Atmospheric Convection and ENSO Surface Winds
6.1 Overview
6.2 Some Preliminaries
6.3 Equation of State
6.4 The First Law of Thermodynamics and Moist Static Energy
6.5 Sea Surface Temperature and Deep Atmospheric Convection
6.6 Heating and Vertical Velocity
6.7 Geopotential, Pressure Coordinates and the Continuity Equation
6.8 A Damped Equatorial Wave Model of the Surface Atmospheric Boundary Response to Large-Scale Convective Heating.
6.9 Theory and Analysis of the Physics of the Near-Surface ENSO Atmospheric Response to Idealized Deep Atmospheric Convective Heating.
7. Seasonally Phase-Locked Coupled Ocean Atmosphere ENSO Physics
7.1 Overview
7.2 The Coupled ENSO Equatorial Instability
7.3 Turning off the Instability in the Southern Hemisphere Summer
7.4 Warm Water Volume and its Connection to Zonal Flow Acceleration and ENSO prediction
7.5 Phase-Locked ENSO Index Time Series and ENSO Predictability
7.6 Other ENSO coupled mechanisms
7.7 Linking the Pacific Equatorial Wind Stress Anomalies with the Equatorial SOI and Niño3.4
7.8 A Verified Estimation of the monthly El Niño Index Niño3.4 since 1877
7.9 Do Large El Niños tend to be followed by La Niñas?
7.9 Decadal Variability
8. Upper Air Response to ENSO Heating and Atmospheric Teleconnections
8.1 Overview
8.2 Observations
8.3 Physics of the Nearly Zonally Asymmetric ENSO Heating Anomalies
8.4 Why is the Western Equatorial Pacific Drier than Normal During an El Niño?
8.5 An Atmospheric ENSO Model
8.6 The Large Zonally Symmetric ENSO Air Temperature Response
8.7 Mid-latitude Zonally Symmetric Cooling During Warm ENSO Events
8.8 Mid-latitude Teleconnections
9. ENSO Forecasting Using Dynamical Models
9.1 Overview
9.2 Smoothing, Bias Correction and Nudging
9.3 The Kalman Filter
9.4 Adjoint Data Assimilation
9.5 Dynamical Model Forecast Performance
10. ENSO Forecasting Using Statistical Models
10.1 Overview
10.2 The Climatology and Persistence Forecasting Scheme
10.3 A Simple Linear Statistical Forecasting Model Based on ENSO physics
10.4 Prediction Using Canonical Correlation Analysis
10.5 ENSO Prediction Using a Constructed Analogue Method
10.6 ENSO Prediction Using Linear Inverse Modeling
10.7 Comparison of Statistical and Dynamical ENSO Prediction Models
11. ENSO’s Influence on Marine and Bird Life
11.1 Overview
11.2 El Niño’s Influence in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific
11.3 Peruvian Anchovies and Guano Birds
11.4 Zooplankton off California
11.5 The Leaky Western Equatorial Pacific Boundary and Australian “Salmon”
11.6 Rock Lobsters and the Leeuwin Current off Western Australia
11.7 Banana Prawns in the Gulf of Carpentaria
11.8 Green Turtles on the Great Barrier Reef
11.9 Tuna and the Movement of the Equatorial Pacific Warm Pool
11.10 Migration of the Black Throated Blue Warbler
11.11 Concluding Remarks
12. Trends, Global Warming and ENSO
12.1 Overview
12.2 Greenhouse gases and Global Warming Basics
12.3 Weakening Trend of the Pacific Equatorial Trade Winds
12.4 Detecting ENSO and Long-term Trends Using Corals
12.5 Evidence for the long-term Eastward Movement of the Equatorial Warm Pool
12.5 ENSO, Hurricanes and Global Warming
12.6 Model Results and the Future
2. ENSO in the Tropical Pacific
2.1 Overview
2.2 Spatial Patterns of ENSO in the Tropical Pacific
2.3 Seasonally phase-locked time series structure of major ENSO indices
2.4 A Physical Explanation for El Niño
2.5 A Physical Explanation for the Seasonally Phase-locked Structure of El Niño
3. Equatorial Ocean Waves
3.1 Overview
3.2 The Linear Stratified Ocean Model
3.3 Constant Depth Ocean Dynamics in terms of Vertical Modes
3.4 Zero Vertical Velocity and Zero Perturbation Pressure Bottom Boundary Conditions
3.5 Equatorial Waves
4. Equatorial Wave Reflection from Pacific Ocean Boundaries
4.1 Overview
4.2 Wave Reflection at the Western Pacific Ocean Boundary
4.3 Wave Reflection at the Eastern Pacific Ocean Boundary
4.4 Why Zonal Interannual Equatorial Flow Leads El Niño
5. Wind-Forced Equatorial Wave Theory and the Equatorial Pacific Ocean Response to ENSO Wind Forcing
5.1 Overview
5.2 The Forced Wave Model
5.3 Model Solutions for General Low-Frequency Large-Scale Wind Forcing
5.4 The Yoshida Jet
5.5 Equatorial Rays and Equatorial Beams
5.6 Upper Equatorial Pacific Ocean Response to Idealized ENSO Wind Forcing
5.7 Observed Low-Frequency Behavior of the Equatorial Pacific Sea Level and Thermocline
5.8 Why Equatorial Warm Water Volume is an El Niño Predictor and Why it Can Fail
5.9 An Equatorial Zonal Acceleration ENSO Predictor
5.10 Conclusion
6. Sea Surface Temperature, Deep Atmospheric Convection and ENSO Surface Winds
6.1 Overview
6.2 Some Preliminaries
6.3 Equation of State
6.4 The First Law of Thermodynamics and Moist Static Energy
6.5 Sea Surface Temperature and Deep Atmospheric Convection
6.6 Heating and Vertical Velocity
6.7 Geopotential, Pressure Coordinates and the Continuity Equation
6.8 A Damped Equatorial Wave Model of the Surface Atmospheric Boundary Response to Large-Scale Convective Heating.
6.9 Theory and Analysis of the Physics of the Near-Surface ENSO Atmospheric Response to Idealized Deep Atmospheric Convective Heating.
7. Seasonally Phase-Locked Coupled Ocean Atmosphere ENSO Physics
7.1 Overview
7.2 The Coupled ENSO Equatorial Instability
7.3 Turning off the Instability in the Southern Hemisphere Summer
7.4 Warm Water Volume and its Connection to Zonal Flow Acceleration and ENSO prediction
7.5 Phase-Locked ENSO Index Time Series and ENSO Predictability
7.6 Other ENSO coupled mechanisms
7.7 Linking the Pacific Equatorial Wind Stress Anomalies with the Equatorial SOI and Niño3.4
7.8 A Verified Estimation of the monthly El Niño Index Niño3.4 since 1877
7.9 Do Large El Niños tend to be followed by La Niñas?
7.9 Decadal Variability
8. Upper Air Response to ENSO Heating and Atmospheric Teleconnections
8.1 Overview
8.2 Observations
8.3 Physics of the Nearly Zonally Asymmetric ENSO Heating Anomalies
8.4 Why is the Western Equatorial Pacific Drier than Normal During an El Niño?
8.5 An Atmospheric ENSO Model
8.6 The Large Zonally Symmetric ENSO Air Temperature Response
8.7 Mid-latitude Zonally Symmetric Cooling During Warm ENSO Events
8.8 Mid-latitude Teleconnections
9. ENSO Forecasting Using Dynamical Models
9.1 Overview
9.2 Smoothing, Bias Correction and Nudging
9.3 The Kalman Filter
9.4 Adjoint Data Assimilation
9.5 Dynamical Model Forecast Performance
10. ENSO Forecasting Using Statistical Models
10.1 Overview
10.2 The Climatology and Persistence Forecasting Scheme
10.3 A Simple Linear Statistical Forecasting Model Based on ENSO physics
10.4 Prediction Using Canonical Correlation Analysis
10.5 ENSO Prediction Using a Constructed Analogue Method
10.6 ENSO Prediction Using Linear Inverse Modeling
10.7 Comparison of Statistical and Dynamical ENSO Prediction Models
11. ENSO’s Influence on Marine and Bird Life
11.1 Overview
11.2 El Niño’s Influence in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific
11.3 Peruvian Anchovies and Guano Birds
11.4 Zooplankton off California
11.5 The Leaky Western Equatorial Pacific Boundary and Australian “Salmon”
11.6 Rock Lobsters and the Leeuwin Current off Western Australia
11.7 Banana Prawns in the Gulf of Carpentaria
11.8 Green Turtles on the Great Barrier Reef
11.9 Tuna and the Movement of the Equatorial Pacific Warm Pool
11.10 Migration of the Black Throated Blue Warbler
11.11 Concluding Remarks
12. Trends, Global Warming and ENSO
12.1 Overview
12.2 Greenhouse gases and Global Warming Basics
12.3 Weakening Trend of the Pacific Equatorial Trade Winds
12.4 Detecting ENSO and Long-term Trends Using Corals
12.5 Evidence for the long-term Eastward Movement of the Equatorial Warm Pool
12.5 ENSO, Hurricanes and Global Warming
12.6 Model Results and the Future
Product details
Product details
- Edition: 1
- Latest edition
- Published: January 1, 2027
- Language: English
About the author
About the author
AC
Allan J. Clarke
Emeritus Professor Allan Clarke was formerly a Distinguished Professor and holder of the Adrian E. Gill Chair in Physical Oceanography at Florida State University. For 50 years he studied and taught physical oceanography and air-sea interaction at Florida State. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union, and received the Sverdrup Gold Medal from the American Meteorological Society “For fundamental contributions to the dynamics of ocean currents and air-sea interaction with particular emphasis on the El Niño-Southern Oscillation
Affiliations and expertise
Distinguished Professor and holder of the Adrian E. Gill Chair in Physical Oceanography, Florida State University, USA