🚀 go-pugleaf

>> If these air currents were upset even regionally, then I assume they may
>>affect ocean surface currents. And since the "El Nino" phenomena is related
>>to oceanic temperature changes etc etc, could this then provide for
>>instabilities in the weather/climate on a larger scale ?
>
>Certainly.  El Nino is intimately related to changes in the equatorial
>winds. It's not clear what causes what, though.
>
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>
>Bob Myers                             myers@hobiecat.Caltech.Edu

I would not go so far as to say it is intimately related.  Related,
perhaps.  What happens at the boundaries of the air-sea interface are
poorly understood.  El Nino is a fad in some areas of atmospheric
science and not others.  We don't really understand how heat from the
sea gets into the air (vapor sure, but what mechanisms besides incoming
solar radiation, etc.) and (harder) how heat gets from the air into the sea.
[first sentence]

El Nino is a simple handle to describe a SET of phenomena.  There are
several problems associated with trying to describe it not the least of
which are the 3-D ODEs which describe it and the hydrodynamics (state
changes are the hard part) which are going on.  Be skeptical.

Note: you would never have seen the synopic discovery of El Nino with
the joint use of orbiting satellites and ocean going ships (sea-state).

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
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