Researchers explain Indo-Pacific climate change A breakthrough
in Indo-Pacific climate predictions is now reported in a study
spearheaded by Hiroki Tokinaga, associate researcher at the
International Pacific Research Center at the University of
Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and published in the November 15, 2012 issue
of Nature. Tokinaga’s study covers the tropical Indo-Pacific
climate’s global impact as seen in the floods and droughts
spawned by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Meteorological
observations over the last 60 years show this atmospheric
circulation has slowed—the trade winds have weakened and
rainfall has shifted eastward toward the central Pacific.
Tokinaga, along with other meteorologists have been frustrated
by this anomaly for years. They could not reproduce it in their
atmospheric models, questioning the ability of climate models to
simulate gradual climate change. At the root of the models’
failure, Tokinaga proposed, was the lack of precise sea surface
temperature data used to drive the models. Slig