Earth's ocean and atmosphere interact in countless ways. A striking example is the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). "El Niño" is widely recognized but what is the "Southern Oscillation"? It's the coupled system where neither the ocean nor the atmosphere is clearly the dominant driving force.
ENSO is just one of many such oscillations that occur naturally over different times and regions. Each varies among three phases; for example, a neutral ENSO means normal conditions, while El Niño and La Niña are warming and cooling phases, respectively.
El Niño conditions were first documented in the year 1525. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), however, has only been recognized for about two decades. Better understanding the IOD's impact on weather – including the monsoon of South Asia - is crucial. This is a challenge because ocean-atmosphere oscillations and dipoles are erratic in strength, timing, and notoriously difficult to predict.
Interview: Drs. Heather Roman-Stork and Subrahmanyam Bulusu
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El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has far reaching global climatic impacts and extending useful ENSO forecasts would have great societal benefit. However, one key variable that has yet to be fully exploited within coupled forecast systems is accurate estimation of near‐surface ocean salinity. Satellite sea surface salinity (SSS), combined with temperature, help to improve estimates of ocean density changes and associated near‐surface mixing. In this study, the authors assess the impact of satellite SSS observations for improving near‐surface dynamics within ocean reanalyses and how these initializations impact dynamical ENSO forecasts using NASA's coupled forecast system.
Hackert, E., Kovach, R.M., Molod, A., Vernieres, G., Borovikov, A., Marshak, J., and Chang, Y. (2020). Read the full paper.
Intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs) in the Indian Ocean play a significant role in determining the active (wet) and break (dry) cycles of the southwest monsoon rainfall. In this study, we use satellite‐derived precipitation, sea level anomalies, sea surface salinity, sea surface temperature, and surface winds to monitor the 30‐90‐day, 10‐20‐day, and 3‐7‐day ISOs, and how they influence local dynamics.
Roman‐Stork, H., Subrahmanyam, B., and Trott, C. (2020). Read the full paper.
As a dominant source of tropical variability, the Madden‐Julian oscillation (MJO) influences the ocean in many ways. One approach to observe the atmosphere‐ocean relationship is by examining sea surface salinity (SSS) due to direct freshening by MJO precipitation. The convectively enhanced (suppressed) phase of the MJO is associated with negative (positive) SSS anomalies that propagate eastward along the equatorial Indian and Pacific oceans. In this study, primary MJO events are identified, and their SSS signatures are compared for the first time across multiple satellite salinity products from 2010 to 2017.
Shoup, C.G., Subrahmanyam, B., and Roman-Stork, H.L. (2019). Read the full paper.