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It used to be simpler. Whenever the
surface waters of the equatorial Pacific turned warmer than
normal in summer, climatologists would expect an El Niño year,
then forecast when and where droughts, floods, and hurricanes
might occur. But that was before a study by Georgia Tech
scientists, led by Hye-Mi Kim, deciphered the effects of another
pattern in which high temperatures are confined to the central
Pacific (Click this link to expand the graphic). Now the already difficult field of atmospheric forecasting has become even trickier.
Called El Niño Modoki (Japanese for “similar but different”), it joins El Niño and La Niña, a cold-water phenomenon, as major climate swings that emerge every few years. A Modoki cycle triggers more landfalling storms in the Gulf of Mexico and the western Caribbean than normal, and more tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic than El Niño does. Another difference: Modoki’s precipitation patterns are the reverse of El Niño’s—making the American West, for instance, drier rather than wetter. In 2009, despite early signs of a Modoki year, El Niño prevailed, producing the fewest named Atlantic storms since 1997. —Tom O’Neill
Maps: Jerome N. Cookson, NG Staff Sources: Hye-Mi Kim, Georgia Institute of Technology; National Climatic Data Center, NOAA
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Comments
Feb 22, 2010 2PM #
This is an amazing new, I can´t imagine how many other global weather pattern we can find!
Now I can understand why all people say that we are now under El Niño influence, still here in Argentina the weather doesn´t behave like a classic El Niño (strong, abundant rainfalls) but it´s drier with violent storms accompanied by rather sporadic although strong rainfalls in some spots whereas in other we have small or no rainfall at all. Like La Niña!
Seeing the map, Chile and Peru´s sea coast seems like La Niña, not el Niño, even with equatorial Pacific waters warmer than normal in summer. It´s truly a nice explanation of our current weather here in my country. How much this Modoki is a normal, natural phenomenon or a new consequence of the global warming is something that needs to be elucidated!
Feb 22, 2010 2PM #
I was surprised to find such an innate Japanese word used by climate scientists to describe this new type of El Nino. Out of curiosity I did a google search and landed on a website of JAMSTEC, a well-known Japanese research center for ocean research.
http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d1/iod/modoki_home.html.en
No wonder, they have used a Japanese term to name this new type of El Nino. Interestingly, the previous comment nicely augments the Japanese meaning of Modoki, which suggests a look-alike but not quite the same thing. I hope these new findings will help us to mitigate issues related to global warming and will ease skepticism.
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