Abstract

NOAA’s Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) is used to record for historical purposes the occurrence and duration of El Niño episodes, based on the monitoring of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the central Pacific Ocean. The ONI is used to identify the onset of an above average SST threshold that persists for several months, encompassing both the beginning and end of an El Niño episode. The first appearance of an anomalous seasonal value of 0.5 °C suggests with a high probability that an El Niño could emerge, but for heightened warnings, one must wait for several months. In this article, we proposed that the ONI value of 0.7 °C identifies a tipping point at which the El Niño event becomes locked in, which can provide additional lead time for mitigative actions to be taken by societal decision makers. Our preliminary findings suggest that a first appearance of 0.7 °C value could serve as a credible marker of El Niño’s locked-in phase, which can provide additional credibility to the current 0.5 °C El Niño onset indicator for at-risk societies to get ready for El Niño’s foreseeable societal and ecological impacts.

Details

Title
Reviewing the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) to Enhance Societal Readiness for El Niño’s Impacts
Author
Glantz, Michael H 1 ; Ramirez, Ivan J 2 

 University of Colorado, Consortium for Capacity Building/INSTAAR, Boulder, USA (GRID:grid.266190.a) (ISNI:0000000096214564) 
 University of Colorado, Consortium for Capacity Building/INSTAAR, Boulder, USA (GRID:grid.266190.a) (ISNI:0000000096214564); University of Colorado Denver, Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences, Denver, USA (GRID:grid.241116.1) (ISNI:0000000107903411) 
Pages
394-403
Publication year
2020
Publication date
Jun 2020
Publisher
Springer Nature B.V.
ISSN
20950055
e-ISSN
21926395
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2413828120
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.