Abstract
The tropical Pacific basin allows strong feedbacks among the trade winds, equatorial zonal sea surface temperature contrast, and upper ocean heat content. Coupled atmosphere-ocean dynamics produce both the strong Pacific cold tongue climate state and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon. A simple paradigm of the tropical climate system is presented, capturing the basic physics of these two important aspects of the tropic Pacific and basic features of the climate states of the Atlantic and Indian ocean basins.
Keywords
ClimatologyAtmosphere (unit)Sea surface temperatureOcean heat contentPacific decadal oscillationOceanographyStructural basinOceanic basinEl Niño Southern OscillationGeologyTropical climateSouthern oscillationPacific oceanEnvironmental scienceGeographyMeteorologyPaleontology
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
Late Paleocene to Eocene paleoceanography of the equatorial Pacific Ocean: Stable isotopes recorded at Ocean Drilling Program Site 865, Allison Guyot
An expanded and largely complete upper Paleocene to upper Eocene section was recovered from the pelagic cap overlying Allison Guyot, Mid‐Pacific Mountains at Ocean Drilling Prog...
Sensitivity of Eurasian Climate to Surface Uplift of the Tibetan Plateau
Experiments with climate models are used to illustrate how earth's climate could be expected to change if surface uplift occurred. The experiments contrast two climate simulatio...
Filtering of Milankovitch Cycles by Earth's Geography
Abstract Earth's land-sea distribution modifies the temperature response to orbitally induced perturbations of the seasonal insolation. We examine this modification in the frequ...
CLIMATE-RELATED CHANGE IN AN INTERTIDAL COMMUNITY OVER SHORT AND LONG TIME SCALES
Changes in the abundance of macroinvertebrate species documented in a rocky intertidal community between surveys in 1931–1933 and 1993–1996 are consistent with the predicted eff...
The ERA5 global reanalysis
Abstract Within the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), ECMWF is producing the ERA5 reanalysis which, once completed, will embody a detailed record of the global atmosphere...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1996
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 274
- Issue
- 5284
- Pages
- 76-78
- Citations
- 214
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
214
OpenAlex
Cite This
Fei‐Fei Jin
(1996).
Tropical Ocean-Atmosphere Interaction, the Pacific Cold Tongue, and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
Science
, 274
(5284)
, 76-78.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.274.5284.76
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.274.5284.76