Radio Script
2003

The climate phenomenon El Niño has reached a "mature stage" and will linger through the end of spring, according to forecasters at the NOAA National Weather Service. The NOAA Climate Prediction Center reports that sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean remained greater than 1°C (2°F) above average in December. Warm sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean are represented in red. Click on image to see global map of temperatures (Courtesy NOAA.)

El Niño Winners and Losers
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INTRO: This winter's El Niño weather pattern has sent storm after storm into the U.S West Coast and brought heavy snows to New England states. The weather phenomenon also is influencing a warmer-than-normal winter as far north as Alaska. And as Doug Schneider reports in this week's Arctic Science Journeys Radio, the North Pacific's latest El Niño may have important long-term impacts on Alaska's commercial fisheries.

STORY: Six months ago, when scientists first noticed ocean temperatures rising in the equatorial South Pacific Ocean, they predicted the United States would experience a mild El Niño in the coming winter. As winter approached, the periodic phenomenon that alters weather patterns sent a string of storms surging into California, Oregon and Washington—storms that have dumped heavy snows as far east as the New England states.

Nick Bond is a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a researcher at the University of Washington. He studies the impact of El Niño on the ocean. He says this year's El Niño is influencing the Pacific Ocean all the way to Alaska.

BOND: "Sea surface temperatures are considerably above normal along the west coast of North America and extending into the Bering Sea. At the same time, there's colder than normal water out in the western and central North Pacific. We've seen this before with previous El Niños."

Kevin Bailey is a fisheries scientist at the National Marine Fisheries Service in Washington State. He says major weather events triggered by El Niño create both winners and losers. Off Alaska, pelagic fish species like herring and capelin, that roam the ocean near the surface, may be redistributed as they search for colder water and prey that has also moved. But Bailey says groundfish species like halibut may benefit from nature's climatic curve ball.

BAILEY: "El Niño tends to have negative effects on pelagic fishes, but it also tends to have positive impacts on the recruitment of groundfishes."

Bailey says this winter's El Niño may produce more halibut for the fishery in future years, thanks to stronger ocean currents that push more newly hatched halibut eggs, called larvae, into bays and nearshore nursery areas.

BAILEY: "We see that recruitment ten years down the line. Halibut spawn their eggs far offshore in very deep water. But the nursery grounds for juvenile halibut are in the nearshore area, in bays. So somehow they have to get larvae from way offshore into the nearshore coastal environment. So it looks like El Niño is a mechanism for enhanced onshore transport."

All of the impacts of this year's El Niño won't be known for some time, as scientists take stock of its effects on Alaska's fisheries. Still, most scientists agree that this El Niño won't be anywhere near as powerful as the one that rampaged across the North Pacific in 1997 and 1998. That El Niño caused massive seabird die-offs in the Bering Sea and triggered a large-scale change in the North Pacific ecosystem. Still, Nick Bond says the current El Niño likely will be with us for some months to come.

BOND: "The consensus of the models we have to go on is that it's going to start fading away pretty soon, but that that fading will be slow. I think we can safely say this winter will be an El Niño winter. It's at a magnitude now that it's not going away any time soon. I don't personally see it strengthening a lot. It may end up lasting a little bit longer and end up being a little stronger than we anticipated months ago."

This is Arctic Science Journeys Radio, a production of the Alaska Sea Grant Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. I'm Doug Schneider.

Thanks to the following individuals for help preparing this script:

Kevin Bailey
National Marine Fisheries Service
Seattle, Washington
Phone: 206-526-4243
Email: Kevin.Bailey@noaa.gov

Nick Bond
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Seattle, Washington
Phone: 206-526-6459
Email: Nickolas.A.Bond@noaa.gov

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Related Web site

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration EL Niño home page

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