During El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, atmospheric teleconnections associated with sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the equatorial Pacific can influence the ocean thousands of kilometers away. We use several data sets to delineate this “atmospheric bridge” between ocean basins, focusing on two emerging research areas: 1) the evolution of atmosphere-ocean interactions in th...

[1] Following an El Niño event, a basin-wide warming takes place over the tropical Indian Ocean, peaks in late boreal winter and early spring, and persists through boreal summer. Our observational analysis suggests that this Indian Ocean warming induces robust climatic anomalies in the summer Indo-West Pacific region, prolonging the El Niño’s influence after tropical East Pacific sea surface te...

Dominant climatic factors controlling the lifetime peak intensity of typhoons are determined from six decades of Pacific typhoon data. We find that upper ocean temperatures in the low-latitude northwestern Pacific (LLNWP) and sea surface temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific control the seasonal average lifetime peak intensity by setting the rate and duration of typhoon intensification...

A new species of the macrourine genus Nezumia is described from specimens collected from the crest of Fieberling Guyot in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. The new species is distinguishable from all other Nezumia species chiefly on the basis of a high number of pelvic fin rays, a relatively high number of first dorsal fin soft rays, a steep blunt snout lacking scales ventrally, a relatively wea...

Artificial radionuclides in the marine environment pose a significant concern along various political, health and environmental aspects since they were introduced as a by-product from the nuclear weapon testing, particularly in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. While radiological concern is confined only in special cases, the introduction of artificial radionuclides has been proven to be very use...

Analysis of sea surface temperature (SST) observations suggests a pan-oceanic interaction between the tropical Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean at multi-decadal time scales, such that periods of anomalously high SSTs in the eastern tropical Pacific are followed by a basinwide SST dipole in the Atlantic Ocean with a time delay of a few decades. The SST anomaly structure in the Atlantic Ocean is re...

Retrospective analyses of Pacific Basin climate records highlight the existence of a pan-Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation. We find strong evidence for coherent patterns of interdecadal variability in Pacific winds, sea level pressures, and upper ocean temperatures. Collectively, the ocean-atmosphere pattern of variability has been labeled the “Pacific Decadal Oscillation”, or PDO. An in...

[1] The Silicic Acid Leakage Hypothesis (SALH) suggests that, during glacial periods, excess silicic acid was transported from the Southern Ocean to lower latitudes, which favored diatom production over coccolithophorid production and caused a drawdown of atmospheric CO2. Downcore records of Th-normalized opal fluxes and Pa/Th ratios from seven equatorial Atlantic cores were used to reconstruct...

The response of the equatorial Pacific Ocean’s seasonal cycle to orbital forcing is explored using idealized simulations with a coupled atmosphere–ocean GCM in which eccentricity, obliquity, and the longitude of perihelion are altered while other boundary conditions are maintained at preindustrial levels. The importance of ocean dynamics in the climate response is investigated using additional ...