Posted by Franko on January 10, 2002 at 15:19:31:
In Reply to: NOAA predicts 2002 will be an El Niņo year posted by Chris on January 10, 2002 at 12:05:18:
It's interesting to note the question mark at the end of the Climate Prediction Center's release -- "Is El Nino Coming Back?"
I have some buddies who are El Nino-watching ocean scientists, and some of them thought the CPC was a little early out of the box in making a call at this point. They indicate that, on the one hand, the pool of warm water in the Pacific is similar in magnitude to the one that got the '97 El Nino rolling. On the other hand there's always the possibility that it could fizzle.
Here's a new image from the Topex/Poseidon satellite that shows the "kelvin wave," or the wave of warm water, heading across the Pacific toward the Americas. The area in question is the fairly horizontal red band right at about the equator:
http://www.inkbox.net/topex-kelvin.gif