Title
Ecological impacts of the 2015/16 El Niño in the Central Equatorial Pacific
Author(s)
Brainard, Russell E.;Oliver, Thomas ;McPhaden, Michael J.;Cohen, Anne ;Venegas, Roberto;Heenan, Adel ;Vargas-Angel, Bernardo;Rotjan, Randi;Mangubhai, Sangeeta;Flint, Elizabeth;Hunter, Susan A.
Published
2018
Publisher
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Abstract
Coral reef and seabird communities in the central equatorial Pacific were disrupted by record-setting sea
surface temperatures, linked to an anthropogenically forced trend, during the 2015/16 El Niño.
In the equatorial Pacific Ocean, the
El Niño–Southern Oscillation substantially affects
atmospheric and oceanic conditions on interannual
time scales. The central and eastern equatorial
Pacific fluctuates between anomalously warm and
nutrient-poor El Niño and anomalously cool and
nutrient-rich La Niña conditions (Chavez et al. 1999;
McPhaden et al. 2006; Gierach et al. 2012). El Niño
events are characterized by an eastward expansion of
the Indo-Pacific warm pool (IPWP) and deepening
of the thermocline and nutricline in response
to weakening trade winds (Strutton and Chavez
2000; Turk et al. 2001). El Niño events are typically
associated with significant decreases in primary
productivity in the eastern and central tropical Pacific
and corresponding increases in productivity in the
western tropical Pacific (Boyce et al. 2010).
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