By IRI Chief Forecaster Tony Barnston This post originally appeared on Climate.gov’s ENSO blog. Reproduced with permission. ENSO arises from changes across the tropical Pacific Ocean. So why does ENSO affect the climate over sizable portions of the globe, including some regions far removed from the tropical Pacific Ocean? Does the strength of ENSO matter […]
From February’s climate briefing, given by our Tony Barnston: The central and eastern Pacific Ocean is currently experiencing borderline La Niña conditions, but many models are forecasting an El Niño to develop this (northern hemisphere) summer. Although scientists still don’t know the exact mechanism behind the Pacific’s transition from one state of the El Niño […]
In the last decade, warmer sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic have corresponded with below-average precipitation in Peru and western Brazil. The relationship is due to the effect of sea surface temperatures on the location of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) – a band of clouds and rain stretching around the globe where trade winds […]
This post is the second in a series of Q&As with scientists from the International Research Institute for Climate and Society who will be presenting their work at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco December 9 to 13. During the 1970s and 80s, the western Sahel suffered from severe and prolonged […]
In December 2011, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society issued a seasonal precipitation forecast. The forecast called for a 75 percent chance of above normal precipitation over parts of the Philippines between January and March. As the months played out, storms brought roughly eight inches more rain than usual for the period. That’s about 85 percent […]
What do the economy and tropical ocean temperatures have in common? They’re both exhibiting patterns very similar to 2008. At the International Research Institute for Climate and Society’s monthly climate briefing, chief forecaster Tony Barnston focused more on the latter. He laid out the past and the present and what clues they provide about the future. The […]
Don’t write a eulogy for La Niña quite yet. “I thought it would die by this briefing,” said Tony Barnston, the chief forecaster at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, last week. At the climate briefing, which IRI holds every month, Barnston showed signs of La Niña are still observable in the equatorial Pacific. […]