ENSO & SST

ENSO and Sea Surface Temperatures

El Niño easing to neutral state

Equatorial Pacific SSTs weaken further during February

Based on the oceanic and atmospheric observations, the El Niño event is now easing back towards a neutral state. Most leading El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) models indicate that the event will weaken to neutral state by end of May 2003.

The NINO3 SST anomaly dropped 0.5°C in February (now +0.5°C), and NINO4 dropped to +1.0°C. The three month (December - February) means are about +1.1°C and +1.2°C for NINO3 and NINO4, respectively. Waters remain relatively warm off the southeastern Australian coast and across the southern Pacific east of the Dateline. Westerly zonal wind anomalies are now restricted to the Indonesian region and the area of reduced OLR near the Dateline appears to be reducing in intensity and has spread off the Equator to the southeast. The area of suppressed convection in the west now lies over the northern Coral Sea extending to the Fiji region.

Most of the Global Climate Models indicate neutral conditions from the present through the southern hemisphere winter and into spring.

Sea surface temperature anomalies (°C) for February 2003

Mean sea surface temperatures (°C) for February 2003