Accurately characterizing natural versus forced sea surface temperature variability in observations is needed to validate and verify climate models used for projections of future climate change. This study successfully resolves previous large discrepancies in estimated tropical Indo-Pacific twentieth-century trends between observationally based sea surface temperature reconstructions.
The South Pacific convergence zone is a region of high precipitation spanning a vast swath of the Pacific Ocean that can shift northwards and become longitudinally oriented; such extreme zonal events have severe weather and climatic impacts and are predicted to become more frequent under greenhouse warming conditions.
for full text: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7411/full/nature11358.html
The failure of atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) forced by prescribed SST to simulate and predict the interannual variability of Indian/Asian monsoon has been widely attributed to their inability to reproduce the actual sea surface temperature (SST)–rainfall relationship in the warm Indo-Pacific oceans. This assessment is based on a comparison of the observed and simulated correlation between the rainfall and local SST. However, the observed SSTconvection/rainfall relationship is nonlinear and for this a linear measure such as the correlation is not an appropriate measure.
There are many challenges involved in understanding climate variations in the tropics, and how the Pacific climate might change with global warming. One study offers a surprising perspective on the mechanisms involved.
A magnitude-6.2 earthquake rattled the island nation of Tonga in the South Pacific on Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The Climate Prediction Centre (CPC) of the US National Weather Services has officially switched its El Nino-La Nina alert system status to a ‘La Nina watch.'
A strong earthquake has struck off the coast of the Pacific island nation of Fiji. There are no immediate reports of injuries or damage and no tsunami warning has been issued.
Coarse resolution palaeoclimate proxy evidence has suggested that the Pliocene warm period (PWP) between 3 million and 5 million years ago was characterized by permanent El Niño conditions in which the equatorial Pacific was uniformly warm, instead of having the modern-day 'cold tongue' extending westward from South America.
A powerful 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck off the western Pacific nation of Vanuatu on Sunday, triggering a small tsunami exactly six years after giant waves killed 2,20,000 people around the Indian Ocean.
The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the shallow quake generated a tsunami, but it cancelled a regional warning after the wave measured only 15 cm higher than normal in Vanua
