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Model Outlooks of ENSO Conditions from April 2008
Product Code: IDCKGLM000
La Niña Has Dissipated - Neutral Conditions To Continue
Summary
Most indicators of El Niño - Southern Oscillation are now neutral. Further warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean over the last month had the 7-day NINO3 index on 27 April at +0.17°C and the 30-day SOI on 28 April was +5. The Pacific waters below the surface have also warmed significantly over the last month. The La Niña therefore appears to have dissipated and neutral conditions now prevail. Our ENSO Wrap-up has more details.
The latest forecasts of ENSO from international coupled climate models suggest that conditions will remain neutral throughout the outlook period. Most models surveyed here forecast sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean to warm slowly for the rest of 2008 but to stay in the neutral range. While the forecasts are suggesting slightly warmer ocean temperaures than the outlooks issued one month ago, it is still unlikely that an El Niño will develop in 2008.
Model Outlooks
The following table summarizes the opinion of National Climate Centre climatologists regarding the outputs from various forecast models. The model set contains six reputable ocean or coupled ocean/atmosphere climate models that take into account complex physical ocean processes. NCC's interpretation may not necessarily be the same as the organisations producing the model output. You are therefore encouraged to follow the hyperlinks to the various institutions listed in the table.
See About ENSO outlooks for details on the models and a summary of the terms used.
| MODEL / GROUP |
Forecast Start Date | 2-4 MONTHS (Jun to Aug) |
5-7 MONTHS (Sep to Nov) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
POAMA (run at Bureau of Met) |
30 March - 28 April | Neutral | Neutral |
|
System 3 ECMWF |
01 April | Neutral | Neutral # |
|
GloSea UK Met Office |
01 April | Neutral | Not Available |
|
CSF NCEP |
18 - 27 April | Neutral | Neutral |
|
CGCMv1 GMAO/NASA |
April | Neutral | Neutral |
|
JMA-CGCM02 Japan Met. Agency |
February | Neutral | Neutral # |
# Model forecast is run only until the end of October
Note that some links above may be updated to more recent forecasts than
listed here.
POAMA Forecasts
The POAMA model, run at the Bureau of Meteorology, generates a new forecast every day for the following eight months based on the latest observations. The average of the most recent 30 model runs suggests the NINO3 temperatures will warm slowly but regularly through the outlook period. The forecasts show that NINO3 will stay in the neutral range for the rest of 2008. The Pacific Ocean temperatures are prodicted to be slightly warmer than the forecasts from one month earlier.
July
For the 30 runs of POAMA between 30th March and 28th April 2008, the
distribution of NINO3 temperature anomalies averaged over JULY is as follows:
below −0.8°C: 0% (Cool)
−0.8°C to +0.8°C: 100% (Neutral)
above +0.8°C: 0% (Warm)
October
And similarly for OCTOBER the results are:
below −0.8°C: 0% (Cool)
−0.8°C to +0.8°C: 100% (Neutral)
above +0.8°C: 0% (Warm)
Similar data for other months can be accessed by following the "POAMA" link in the table above.
Users should exercise caution when interpreting these forecasts and are encouraged to view the actual model outputs by following the web links. Frequent updates of the latest observational data with relevant commentary are available on the Bureau's ENSO Wrap-Up page.
This survey last updated 30th April 2008.
Next update expected in late May 2008.