Global Oceans
Gregory C. Johnson, Rick Lumpkin, Chris Atkinson, Tiago Carrilho Biló, Tim Boyer, Francis Bringas, Brendan R. Carter, Ivona Cetinić, D. P. Chambers, Duo Chan, Lijing Cheng, Leah Chomiak, Meghan F. Cronin, Shenfu Dong, Richard A. Feely, Bryan A. Franz, Meng Gao, Jay Garg, John Gilson, Gustavo Goñi, B. D. Hamlington, Will Hobbs, Zeng‐Zhen Hu, Boyin Huang, Masayoshi Ishii, Svetlana Jevrejeva, William E. Johns, Peter Landschützer, Matthias Lankhorst, E. W. Leuliette, Ricardo Locarnini, John M. Lyman, Michael J. McPhaden, M. A. Merrifield, Alexey Mishonov, Gary T. Mitchum, Ben Moat, Ivan Mrekaj, R. S. Nerem, Sarah G. Purkey, Bo Qiu, James Reagan, Katsunari Sato, Claudia Schmid, Jonathan D. Sharp, David A. Siegel, David Smeed, Paul W. Stackhouse, William Sweet, P. R. Thompson, Joaquín Triñanes, Denis L. Volkov, Rik Wanninkhof, Caihong Wen, Toby K. Westberry, Matthew J. Widlansky, J. K. Willis, Pingping Xie, Xungang Yin, Huai‐Min Zhang, Li Zhang, Jessicca Allen, Amy V. Camper, Bridgette O. Haley, Gregory Hammer, S. Elizabeth Love-Brotak, Laura Ohlmann, Lukas Noguchi, Deborah B. Riddle, Sara W. Veasey
Abstract
An unusual "triple-dip" La Nia, described in Sidebar 3.1, had continuing, wide-spread ramifications for the state of ocean and climate in 2022. Triple-dip La Nias are not unprecedented, but until now have always followed an extreme El Nio. Anomalously low sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) in the eastern tropical Pacific persisted from August 2020 through December 2022, with only a brief intermission in May-July 2021. Strengthened easterly trade winds drove anomalously strong westward surface currents and brought cold waters to the surface in the eastern equatorial Pacific while also accumulating anomalously salty and warm waters in the western equatorial Pacific, raising sea level there. These cold upwelled waters resulted in anomalously large fluxes of carbon dioxide from the ocean to the atmosphere and heat from the atmosphere to the ocean, with anomalously high chlorophyll concentrations found around its edges. Fresh sea-surface salinity (SSS) anomalies strengthened off the equator in the Pacific as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and South Pacific Convergence Zone and associated rainfall shifted poleward.