El Niño-ENSO monitoring and forecasting

In Peru a service for El Nino forecasting started in 1983: a forecast is issued every year in November, when the El Nino event could begin (actually its name is related to Christmas). The appearance and the disappearance of the event are both economically important: during ENSO years floods are reported; during non-ENSO years drought can occur.

An overview of global El Nino impacts and benefits as well as El Nino prediction and forecast are accessible from the NOAA El Nino theme page.

ENSO global continuous monitoring is carried on internationally, in the framework of World Climate and Oceanography Programs. To this aim satellite data are routinely used. Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Sea Surface Height (SSH) are considered as ENSO indicators: the latter - as measured by altimeter - is an indicator of ocean heat content.

A monthly updated ENSO forecast is available in the Integrated Global Ocean Services System (IGOSS) Product Bulletin. An ENSO indicator is defined as the SST averaged (SSTA) over an Eastern Equatorial Pacific area (NINO3).

Among the IGOSS products there is the monthly Pacific ERS-1 sea level anomaly (1994-1995), as derived from ERS-1 Altimeter measurements.

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry