The North Pacific Gyre Oscillation makes its appearance
When humanity gets a handle on a strong thing it gets given a name. Watch out for the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO) which will now join the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) alongside all the others including Arctic and Antarctic. Gaberlunzie, wondering at the oscillating world and starting to get quite sea-sick, wonders if they are actually stitched together anywhere graphically?
Scientists at Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered a new climate pattern called the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation. This new pattern explains, for the first time, changes in the water important to help commercial fishermen understand fluctuations in the fish stock.
They’re also finding that as the temperature of the Earth is warming, large fluctuations in these factors could help climatologists predict how the oceans will respond in a warmer world. The research appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“We’ve been able to explain, for the first time, the changes in salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll that we see in the Northeast Pacific,” said Emanuele Di Lorenzo, assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
Since 1945, fishermen in the California current of the Pacific Ocean have been tracking temperature, salinity and nutrients, among other things in the ocean to help them predict changes in fish populations like sardines and anchovies that are important for the industry. Studying this data, along with satellite images, Di Lorenzo discovered a pattern of current that he named the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation.
Recent satellite data suggest that this current is undergoing intensification as the temperature of the Earth has risen over the past few decades. "Although the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation is part of a natural cycle of the climate system, we find evidence suggesting that its amplitude may increase as global warming progresses," said Di Lorenzo. NPGO presumably will now stitch into the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (below followed by) the El Nino Southern Oscillation ENSO which lives with the Southern Oscillation Index SOI and the North Atlantic Oscillation flung in for good measure.
Positive oscillation
Negative oscillations
Sources: http://www.gatech.edu/
http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/lanina.html
http://www.jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/NAO/
nsidc.org/arcticmet/patterns/arctic_oscillation.html
http://tinyurl.com/49nrhw