SPACEPHOTOS

02 Jan 01 - The El Niño and La Niña events of the past few years may have faded into climate history, but the Pacific Ocean has not calmed down. The latest satellite data from the U.S.-French TOPEX/Poseidon mission show that the entire Pacific basin continues to be dominated by the strong and stable Pacific Decadal Oscillation's (PDO) characteristic warm horseshoe and cool wedge pattern. The PDO is a long-term ocean temperature fluctuation of the Pacific Ocean that waxes and wanes approximately every 10 to 20 years. 'While this PDO pattern tends to make the formation of a new El Niño event less likely, it may signal a continuation of the unusually dry conditions that have afflicted the West Coast in the past two years,' said Dr. William Patzert of NASA's JPL