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Mail*Link(r) SMTP               FWD>Topex/Poseidon Confirms El Nino is Back
and...

I'm also on a NASA press release mailing list, and just got this. Thought I'd
pass it along, but if you have a window you can see out of, this probably
isn't news.

Roger.
roger@fe*.ca*.ed*

--------------------------------------
Date: 1/24/95 10:45 PM
From: NASA HQ Public Affairs Office
Brian Dunbar
Headquarters, Washington, DC                                         
January 24, 1995
(Phone:  202/358-0873)

Mary Hardin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
(Phone:  818/354-5011)



RELEASE:  95-7


TOPEX/POSEIDON CONFIRMS EL NINO IS BACK AND 
STRONGER THAN IN 1993

     The El Nino phenomenon is back and is getting stronger, 
according to scientists studying data from the ocean-
observing TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite. 

     El Nino is a climatic event that can bring devastating 
weather to several parts of the world, including the recent 
heavy rains and flooding in California, and the warmer than 
normal winter in the eastern United States.

     "The satellite has observed high sea-surface elevation, 
which reflects an excessive amount of unusually warm water 
in the upper ocean," said Dr. Lee-Lveng Fu, JPL 
TOPEX/POSEIDON project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.  "The associated excess of heat 
creates high sea-surface temperatures, which affect the 
weather worldwide by heating the atmosphere and altering the 
atmospheric jet streams."

     Jet streams are high-level winds, five to ten miles 
above the Earth's surface, created when warm and cold air 
masses meet.  Shifts in the location of jet streams change 
temperatures and precipitation zones at the surface.

     El Nino begins when the westward trade winds weaken and 
a large warm water mass, called a Kelvin wave, is allowed to 
move eastward along the equator in the Pacific Ocean.  Data 
from the radar altimeter onboard TOPEX/POSEIDON, recorded 
from October through December 1994, reveal a new Kelvin wave 
moving toward the western coast of South America.

     "This wave is currently occupying most of the tropical 
Pacific Ocean.  It will take another month or two before the 
wave disperses.  Compared to the El Nino condition of the 
winter of 1992-93, the present one appears somewhat stronger 
and might have stronger and longer lasting effects," Fu 
said. 

     TOPEX/POSEIDON, a joint program of NASA and the Centre 
Nationale d'Etudes Spatiales, the French space agency, uses 
a radar altimeter to precisely measure sea-surface height.  
Scientists use the TOPEX/POSEIDON data to produce global 
maps of ocean circulation.  Launched Aug. 10, 1992, the 
satellite has completed two and a half years of its three-
year prime mission and has provided oceanographers with 
unprecedented global sea level measurements that are 
accurate to better than 2 inches (5 centimeters).

     "The global sea-surface elevation information provided 
by TOPEX/POSEIDON is unique because it is related to the 
amount of heat stored in the upper ocean, which is important 
for long-range weather forecasting.  The speed and direction 
of ocean currents also can be determined from the elevation 
information, providing another piece of critical information 
about the ocean, which is the key to climate change," Fu 
continued.

     TOPEX/POSEIDON is part of NASA's Mission to Planet 
Earth, a coordinated, long-term research program to study 
the Earth's global environment.  TOPEX/POSEIDON's sea-
surface height data are essential to understanding the role 
oceans play in regulating global climate, one of the least 
understood areas of climate research.  TOPEX/POSEIDON will 
provide the first comprehensive, consistent measurements of 
the circulations of the ocean.

     The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 
TOPEX/POSEIDON mission for NASA.


                         -end-

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