Links: Scalar Plot | Research: The State of the Ocean
ENSO signal in VENUS Saanich Inlet data?
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a quasi-periodic climate event in the tropical Pacific Ocean consisting of a warm-phase (El Niño) and a cool-phase (La Niña). In the pacific northwest, El Niño events typically bring mild winters and cool summers, whereas in contrast, La Niña events bring cool winters generally followed by hotter summers.
The longest record of VENUS data, containing nearly 5 years of continuous data, spans multiple ENSO events as shaded in the above plot (El Niño events shaded in green, La Niña events shaded in blue). The temperature record (red) shows the milder winters of El Niño events in 2006/2007 and again in 2009/2010. The La Niña event of 2008/2009 brought the coldest temperatures of our time series to date, followed by a hot summer. The ENSO signal is less obvious in salinity (green), density (blue) and oxygen (purple). Currently we are in a La Niña phase of the ENSO oscillation. For more information on ENSO, see here.
