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El Niño

The child prodigy of 1997-98

Nature volume 398, pages 559–561 (1999)Cite this article

Just under a year ago, a sharp drop in equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperatures heralded the end of the 1997-98 El Niño. Called by some “the climate event of the century”, it was by several measures the strongest on record.

Identifying why it was so strong challenges our understanding of the physical mechanisms responsible for El Niño. This is more than simply an academic question: the 1997-98 El Niño severely disrupted global weather patterns and Pacific marine ecosystems, and by one estimate caused $33 billion in damage and cost 23,000 lives worldwide1. There were warnings of an impending El Niño before it occurred. But although many computer forecast models predicted 1997 would be warm in the tropical Pacific up to three seasons in advance, none predicted the rapid development or ultimate intensity of the event before its onset2. Clearly we have much to learn from this experience.

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Figure 1: Taking the pulse of El Niño.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michael J. McPhaden is in the NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, 98115, Washington, USA

    Michael J. McPhaden

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  1. Michael J. McPhaden
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McPhaden, M. The child prodigy of 1997-98. Nature 398, 559–561 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/19193

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