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<DIV class=article-heading><FONT size=5><STRONG>El Niño monitoring system in
failure mode</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>US budget woes cripple a key mooring array in the tropical Pacific
Ocean.</DIV>
<DIV class=popup-parent data-role="popup-parent"><SPAN class=vcard><A class=fn
href="http://www.nature.com/news/el-ni%C3%B1o-monitoring-system-in-failure-mode-1.14582?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20140128#auth-1"
data-popup-width="estimate">Jeff Tollefson</A></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=popup-parent data-role="popup-parent"><SPAN class=vcard>Nature -
</SPAN>23 January 2014</TIME></DIV>
<DIV class="cleared article-tools extra"><A
href="http://www.nature.com/news/el-ni%C3%B1o-monitoring-system-in-failure-mode-1.14582?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20140128">http://www.nature.com/news/el-ni%C3%B1o-monitoring-system-in-failure-mode-1.14582?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20140128</A></DIV>
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<DIV
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class=credit align=center><FONT size=1>NOAA - </FONT><FONT size=1>Nearly half of
the buoys in the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean array have failed because of delayed
maintenance.</FONT></DIV>
<P class="content no-heading cleared main-content">An ocean-monitoring system
that extends across the tropical Pacific is collapsing, depriving scientists of
data on a region that influences global weather and climate trends.</P>
<P class="content no-heading cleared main-content">Nearly half of the moored
buoys in the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array have failed in the past two
years, crippling an early-warning system for the warming and cooling events in
the eastern equatorial Pacific, known respectively as El Niño and La Niña.
Scientists are now collecting data from just 40% of the array.</P>
<P class="content no-heading cleared main-content">“It’s the most important
climate phenomenon on the planet, and we have blinded ourselves to it by not
maintaining this array,” says Michael McPhaden, a senior scientist at the US
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Seattle, Washington.
McPhaden headed the TAO project before it was transferred out of NOAA’s research
arm and into the agency's National Weather Service in 2005.</P>
<P class="content no-heading cleared main-content">The network was developed
over the course of a decade following the massive El Niño of 1982‒83. NOAA
maintains some 55 buoys across the eastern and central Pacific that monitor
weather conditions as well as water temperatures down to 500 metres. Working in
concert, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)
maintains another dozen buoys in the western tropical Pacific. Combined, the
monitoring system has become a cornerstone for seasonal weather forecasting
given the tropical Pacific’s influence on broader weather patterns.</P>
<DIV
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class="img-content cleared" align=center><A class=lightbox-link
href="http://www.nature.com/news/tao-triton-array-gif-7.15142?article=1.14582"><FONT
color=#000000 size=1><IMG class=lightbox alt=""
src="http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/7.15142.1390517037!/image/tao-triton-array.gif_gen/derivatives/landscape_400/tao-triton-array.gif"
data-derivative="fullsize" data-full-width="600"
data-full-height="247"></FONT></A><FONT size=1> </FONT></DIV>
<DIV
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class=credit align=center><FONT size=1>NOAA - </FONT><FONT size=1>The TAO array
monitors conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV
style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px; PADDING-LEFT: 1px; PADDING-RIGHT: 1px; PADDING-TOP: 1px"
class=credit align=center><FONT size=1>Turquoise dots represent US buoys, while
yellow dots show Japanese buoys.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV
style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px; PADDING-LEFT: 1px; PADDING-RIGHT: 1px; PADDING-TOP: 1px"
class=lightbox-icon align=center><A class="lightbox-link hide-text" title=Expand
href="javascript:;"><FONT size=1>Expand</FONT></A></DIV>
<H2 class="content no-heading cleared main-content"><FONT size=3>An array
adrift</FONT></H2>
<P class="content no-heading cleared main-content">The array's troubles began in
2012, when budget cuts pushed NOAA to retire a ship dedicated to performing the
annual servicing that keeps the TAO buoys in working order. According to
McPhaden, NOAA's annual budget for the project stood at about US$10 million to
$12 million before 2012 — a figure that included around $6 million to cover<B>
</B>the dedicated ship. In fiscal year 2013, the agency spent $2 million to $3
million to charter boats for maintenance runs, but McPhaden says that these
operations have not been enough to keep the system going. Meanwhile, although
JAMSTEC has thus far kept its portion of the array up and running, it too is
under budgetary pressure.</P>
<P class="content no-heading cleared main-content">A cadre of researchers from
around the world will meet next week at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
in La Jolla, California, to discuss possible solutions. NOAA has indicated that
the agency will put additional resources into the programme this coming year,
but few expect that this will be enough to fully restore the array.</P>
<DIV
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class="img-content cleared" align=center><A class=lightbox-link
href="http://www.nature.com/news/tao-data-return2-png-7.15146?article=1.14582"><FONT
color=#000000 size=1><IMG class=lightbox alt=""
src="http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/7.15146.1390520146!/image/TAO_Data_Return2.png_gen/derivatives/landscape_400/TAO_Data_Return2.png"
data-derivative="fullsize" data-full-width="700"
data-full-height="386"></FONT></A><FONT size=1> </FONT></DIV>
<DIV
style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px; PADDING-LEFT: 1px; PADDING-RIGHT: 1px; PADDING-TOP: 1px"
class=credit align=center><FONT size=1>NOAA - </FONT><FONT size=1>The amount of
data returned by the TAO array has plummeted as buoys have gone
offline.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV
style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px; PADDING-LEFT: 1px; PADDING-RIGHT: 1px; PADDING-TOP: 1px"
class=lightbox-icon align=center><A class="lightbox-link hide-text" title=Expand
href="javascript:;"><FONT size=1>Expand</FONT></A></DIV>
<P class="content no-heading cleared main-content">“The array really
revolutionized our science, and to let it deteriorate is such a waste of the
investment the Americans have made over the past 30 years,” says Wenju Cai, a
climate modeller at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organization in Aspendale, Australia. Cai was the lead author on a recent
paper<SUP><A id=ref-link-1 class=ref-link
title="Cai, W. et al. Nature Clim. Change http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE2100 (2014)."
href="http://www.nature.com/news/el-ni%C3%B1o-monitoring-system-in-failure-mode-1.14582?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20140128#b1">1</A></SUP> with
McPhaden and others projecting that global warming could double the frequency of
extreme El Niño events — such as those in 1982‒83 and 1997‒98, each of which
caused epic damage around the globe.</P>
<P class="content no-heading cleared main-content">Buoys are not the only
instruments monitoring the equatorial Pacific. Scientists also supplement data
from the TAO array with measurements of both sea surface temperature collected
via satellite and ocean temperature collected by the global network of
free-floating buoys known as Argo, which dive and report data every ten days.
But satellites cannot see beneath the ocean surface, and Argo floats cannot
provide the kind of real-time measurements at specific locations that come from
the array of moored buoys.</P>
<DIV class="related-stories-box box">In addition to supporting climate research,
the TAO array also provides basic data for seasonal weather forecasts issued by
various government agencies around the world. The impact of the data loss on
current predictions remains unclear, in part because the tropical Pacific has
been in a neutral state since the buoy system began to fail. But there are signs
that seasonal climate models are beginning to suffer from the lack of data,
McPhaden says, and it would be a shame if another major El Niño were to arrive
while the system is crippled.</DIV>
<P class="content no-heading cleared main-content">“In my opinion, NOAA dropped
the ball on an incredible programme for climate research and weather
forecasting,” McPhaden says. “And now they are trying to put Humpty Dumpty back
together again.”</P>
<DIV class=section>
<DL class=citation>
<DT><A href="javascript:;" jQuery16408271301563244953="8"><FONT
color=#000000><STRONG>References</STRONG></FONT></A></DT></DL></DIV>
<DIV id=references class="section expanded">
<DIV class=content>
<OL class=references>
<LI id=b1>
<P><SPAN class="vcard author"><SPAN class=fn>Cai, W.</SPAN></SPAN> <I>et
al</I>. <SPAN class=source-title>Nature Clim. Change</SPAN> <A
href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE2100">http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE2100</A>
(2014). <A class="context-link show" href="javascript:;">Show
context</A></P></LI></OL></DIV></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>