28 February 2007
ENSO and Sea Surface Temperatures
Warmer SSTs in western equatorial Pacific
Neutral ENSO state forecast till April 2004
The Equatorial Pacific is in a neutral state, but equatorial SSTs remain higher than normal, especially just west of the Date Line.
The NINO3 SST anomaly for November is about +0.6°C and NINO4 is above +1.1°C (3-month means are +0.6°C and +0.9°C, respectively). Despite the relatively high SST anomalies, zonal winds have been near-normal in the Equatorial Pacific recently, after a period of westerly anomalies in the west. Subsurface ocean temperature anomalies show little change from October, being weakly positive above 100 m depth, and weakly negative in the 100 m below that.
Almost all models indicate neutral conditions (but positive SST anomalies) through to early 2004.
Sea surface temperature anomalies (°C) for November 2003
Mean sea surface temperatures (°C) for November 2003
