NASA Satellites Capture a Stronger La Nina
New NASA satellite data indicate the current La Niña event in the eastern Pacific has remained strong during November and December 2010...
New NASA satellite data indicate the current La Niña event in the eastern
Pacific has remained strong during November and December 2010.
A new
Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 satellite image of the Pacific
Ocean that averaged 10 days of data was just released from NASA. The image,
centered on Dec. 26, 2010, was created at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL), Pasadena, Calif.
"The solid record of La Niña strength only goes
back about 50 years and this latest event appears to be one of the strongest
ones over this time period," said Climatologist Bill Patzert of JPL. "It is
already impacting weather and climate all around the planet."
"Although
exacerbated by precipitation from a tropical cyclone, rainfalls of historic
proportion in eastern Queensland, Australia have led to levels of flooding
usually only seen once in a century," said David Adamec, Oceanographer at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "The copious rainfall is a direct
result of La Niña’s effect on the Pacific trade winds and has made tropical
Australia particularly rainy this year."
The new image depicts places
where the Pacific sea surface height is near-normal, higher (warmer) than normal
and lower (cooler) than normal. The cooler-than normal pool of water that
stretches from the eastern to the central Pacific Ocean is a hallmark of a La
Niña event.
Earth's ocean is the greatest influence on global climate.
Only from space can we observe our vast ocean on a global scale and monitor
critical changes in ocean currents and heat storage. Continuous data from
satellites like OSTM/Jason-2 help us understand and foresee the effects of ocean
changes on our climate and on climate events such as La Niña and El
Niño.
The latest report from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) noted
that "A moderate-to-strong La Niña continued during December 2010 as reflected
by well below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) across the equatorial
Pacific Ocean." The CPC report said that La Niña is expected to continue well
into the Northern Hemisphere spring 2011.
Related Links:
› NOAA's latest prediction on La Nina
› Ocean surface topography from space
› La Nina and El Nino events
