La Niña keeps hanging around

TOPEX/Poseidon orbiting satellite July 27 showed strongly contrasting ocean levels and temperatures on opposite sides of the north Pacific. Courtesy NASA.

August 10, 1999
Web posted at: 2:37 p.m. EDT (1837 GMT)

"La Niña might be temporarily down, but she's definitely not out," said Patzert. "What we are seeing from space in these wildly fluctuating sea levels and temperature variations is a continuing hangover from La Niña."

TOPEX/Poseidon, a joint project between NASA and France's space agency, Centre National d' Etudes Spatiales, the orbiting satellite July 27 showed strongly contrasting ocean levels and temperatures on opposite sides of the north Pacific. a strong, high-pressure system began to take over northern Pacific atmospheric and ocean patterns more than four months ago.

The latest sea-surface height measurements reveal unusually cool water (shown as blue and purple) and sea levels that are two to seven inches below normal, extending from the Gulf of Alaska along the coast of North America.

On the other side of the north Pacific, temperatures are warm (shown in red and white) and sea levels remain high at four to 13 inches above normal. Normal sea levels appear in green.

"The north Pacific, which drives U.S. climate, is still extremely out of balance, with warm waters in the west and cool waters in the east," Patzert said. "When we see these large contrasts in the ocean, the weather delivery system -- the jet stream coming out of the north Pacific -- will do very unusual things. Like the stock market, we have a very volatile situation brought on by the persistence of these ocean imbalances."

The TOPEX/Poseidon mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of Earth Sciences in Washington, D.C.

Copyright 1999, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.