The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
Accurately characterizing natural versus forced sea surface temperature variability in observations is needed to validate and verify climate models used for projections of future climate change. This study successfully resolves previous large discrepancies in estimated tropical Indo-Pacific twentieth-century trends between observationally based sea surface temperature reconstructions.
The South Pacific convergence zone is a region of high precipitation spanning a vast swath of the Pacific Ocean that can shift northwards and become longitudinally oriented; such extreme zonal events have severe weather and climatic impacts and are predicted to become more frequent under greenhouse warming conditions. for full …
The failure of atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) forced by prescribed SST to simulate and predict the interannual variability of Indian/Asian monsoon has been widely attributed to their inability to reproduce the actual sea surface temperature (SST)–rainfall relationship in the warm Indo-Pacific oceans. This assessment is based on a comparison …
Environmental advocacy groups have been arguing for the expansion of protected areas in the world's seas and oceans. The truth is that for centuries, man has been overexploiting the rich bounty of the open seas. They argue that protected reserves are vital for fish to be able to build up …
There are many challenges involved in understanding climate variations in the tropics, and how the Pacific climate might change with global warming. One study offers a surprising perspective on the mechanisms involved.
A magnitude-6.2 earthquake rattled the island nation of Tonga in the South Pacific on Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The 12:07 p.m. Friday (2307 GMT Thursday) quake was 8.6 kilometers (5.3 miles) below the surface, the USGS said. The USGS …
The Climate Prediction Centre (CPC) of the US National Weather Services has officially switched its El Nino-La Nina alert system status to a ‘La Nina watch.' La Nina refers to the cooling of equatorial Pacific Ocean and shifts the warming pool of waters and storminess to the west, which has …
A strong earthquake has struck off the coast of the Pacific island nation of Fiji. There are no immediate reports of injuries or damage and no tsunami warning has been issued. The US Geological Survey says the 6.6-magnitude quake struck today about 630 km south of the capital Suva at …
A LAB study shows global warming that increases sea-surface temperatures would make cold-blooded creatures of the sea vulnerable. A slight increase in temperature may be conducive to growth. Above a certain temperature threshold, the metabolic demands of tissues such as supply of oxygen progressively limit the energy available for growth …
Coarse resolution palaeoclimate proxy evidence has suggested that the Pliocene warm period (PWP) between 3 million and 5 million years ago was characterized by permanent El Niño conditions in which the equatorial Pacific was uniformly warm, instead of having the modern-day 'cold tongue' extending westward from South America. New high-resolution …
A powerful 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck off the western Pacific nation of Vanuatu on Sunday, triggering a small tsunami exactly six years after giant waves killed 2,20,000 people around the Indian Ocean. The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the shallow quake generated a tsunami, but it cancelled a regional warning …
Washington: Moses might not have parted the Red Sea, but a strong east wind that blew through the night could have pushed the waters back in the way described in biblical writings and the Quran, US researchers reported. Computer simulations, part of a larger study on how winds affect water, …
This guide seeks to inform conservation practice in the tropical Western Pacific, including the island states of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, as well as Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor.
Coral reefs are in dramatic global decline, with seaweeds commonly replacing corals. It is unclear, however, whether seaweeds harm corals directly or colonize opportunistically following their decline and then suppress coral recruitment. In the Caribbean and tropical Pacific, we show that, when protected from herbivores, ~40 to 70% of common …
About 34 million years ago, the first major Antarctic ice sheets appeared, suggesting that major cooling had taken place; however, the global transition into this icehouse climate remains poorly constrained. A new, continuous record of sea surface temperature (SST) from an ocean sediment core in the East Tasman Plateau now …
Lalomanu (Samoa): Grieving Samoans buried their dead in unmarked beachside graves on Thursday as the task of recovering bodies from villages destroyed by four tsunamis continued and an aftershock shook the region. Some Samoans started rebuilding their South Pacific paradise, clearing debris from shattered homes, but others remained in nearby …
Samoa Villages Flattened By 20-Ft Waves Apia (Samoa): A massive tsunami unleashed by a powerful earthquake flattened Samoan villages and swept cars and people out to sea, killing more than 100 people and leaving dozens missing on Wednesday. The death toll was expected to rise. Survivors fled the fastchurning water …
A powerful 7.9 magnitude earthquake in the Pacific off American Samoa generated a tsunami, US government agencies said on Tuesday. Sea level readings indicated a tsunami was generated in the Pacific, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, a branch of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said. The agency earlier …
Patterns of sea-surface warming and cooling in the tropical Pacific seem to be changing, as do the associated atmospheric effects. Increased global warming is implicated in these shifts in El Ni
