Contrasting the 1997/1998 and 2015/2016 El Niño Episodes Using Satellite Radar Altimetry and Sea Surface Temperature Data
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Date
2016-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a topic of increasing scientific and public interest due to the air-sea interaction processes that cause the westerly winds to weaken in the equatorial Pacific (National Geographic Society, 2016). Each El Niño event is different than any other and shows large ranges in their intensities in the form of mean sea level (MSLA) and sea surface temperature (SSTA) anomalies. At this point in history, the El Niño event of 1997–98 has been categorized as the largest on record. However, recent scientific discoveries have suggested that the 2015–16 event has many similar characteristics of 1997–98. This study focuses on contrasting the two events using satellite altimeter data from four satellite missions and sea surface temperature data to qualitatively and statistically address this inquiry. Our analysis concludes that while both are similar in intensity and magnitude, the 1997–98 event has a greater intensity for both SSTA and MSLA up to February 2016. However, the 2015–16 El Niño has a wider spatial reach in mean sea level anomalies across the western Pacific. It seems to have been spanning longer, for almost three years and still going,
than the 1997–98 El Niño. This study requires more processed satellite data for the rest of 2016 in order to get a more complete representation of the 2015–16 El Niño, for a final comparison of the two El Niño’s. Though, the acquisition of these data would still require further research into local weather patterns at different locations to get a better understanding of how the episodes progress and which is truly the strongest on record.
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Keywords
El Niño, Satellite Altimetry, Mean Sea Level Anomaly, Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly