Seminar

The complex behavior of the 2015/2016 El Niño winter

DSRC entrance

Natalia Calvo, Departmento Fisica de la Tierra II at Universidad Complutense de Madrid & NCAR/ACOM.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017, 3:30 pm Mountain Time
DSRC 2A305

Abstract

This talk will examine the outstanding characteristics of the strong 2015-2016 El Niño (EN) winter, with particular attention to the polar stratosphere, potential polar stratospheric ozone effects and the EN impact over the European region. Despite being classified as a strong eastern Pacific (EP) EN event, this event showed an anomalous behavior with some signatures that are typical of central Pacific (CP) EN winters instead. They include (i) record-breaking value of the CP index, (ii) a stronger polar vortex in early and midwinter, due to reduced upward wave activity and a weakened Aleutian low, and (iii) the occurrence of one of the earliest stratospheric final warmings on record, which are more prone to occur during CP-EN.

Natalia Calvo is an Associate Professor in the Departmento Fisica de la Tierra II at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and an Affiliate Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) / Atmospheric Chemistry Observations & Modeling (ACOM).

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