The El Niño forecasts are part of an ongoing research effort at COLA, and do not represent official forecasts. These forecasts should not be used as the basis of any commercial, policy, or other decisions. They are strictly research tools for advancing the understanding of the ocean-atmosphere system.
The NINO3 time series of the predicted
sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) for three
forecasts initialized on, December 1, 1996, January 1, 1997 and
February 1, 1997 are shown below . Each forecast is run for 18 months.
The forecast initialized in December starts with relatively cold
conditions, but begins to warm in January 1997 with near normal
temperatures in April 1997 and a peak warm anomaly in October 1997. The
forecasts initialized in January and February show similar behavior
starting from somewhat warmer conditions and giving weaker warm
anomalies in the boreal fall of 1997.
| Time evolution of the NINO3 SSTA forecast. The solid red curve corresponds to the forecast initialized in December 1996, the dashed blue curve corresponds to the January 1997 forecast and the dotted green curve corresponds to the February 1997 forecast. |
The ensemble mean (average of all three forecasts) horizontal
structure of the predicted SSTA for the boreal spring of 1997, the
boreal summer of 1997 and the boreal fall of 1997 are shown in the
three panels below. During the boreal spring of 1997 the
model predicts near normal conditions throughout the tropical
Pacific with weak positive anomalies in the western and central Pacific.
There is steady warming trend through the boreal summer and fall of 1997
with anomalies greater than 0.6ºC developing throughout much of the
equatorial Pacific. During the boreal fall of 1997 the model predicts an
east-west dipole pattern along the equator with stronger positive
anomalies in the eastern Pacific.
| The ensemble mean anomalies in sea surface temperature (SSTA). The top panel shows the predicted ensemble mean averaged over March-April-May 1997. The middle panel shows the predicted ensemble mean SSTA averaged from June 1997 to August 1997. The bottom panel shows the ensemble mean averaged over September-October-November 1997. |
These latest forecasts are consistent with the forecast from the previos period.
