Скачать или смотреть Preparing for El Niño: How Water Agencies Can Ready with Acoustic Technology

[Originally Recorded Sept. 2015] Meteorologists agree that El Niño is here, and is likely to continue into the winter unleashing weather extremes over half the globe.

So what exactly is this phenomenon? In official terms, El Niño is a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that is defined by anomalously warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the eastern half of the equatorial Pacific, that cause a shift in the atmospheric circulation resulting in changes to the distribution of tropical rainfall from the eastern Indian Ocean east to the tropical Atlantic (one half the Earth’s circumference). Historically, it has resulted in more rain in the lower half of the United States (from California to Florida), in eastern Asia (Korea and Japan), and western Central/South America (Peru, Mexico, Brazil), and more Pacific Hurricanes. Why all the recent hype? Well historically speaking, the 1996-97 El Nino was the strongest on record, and the current SST conditions are looking similar.

The latest NOAA status report on August 3, 2015, has issued an “El Niño Advisory” and says that “El Niño conditions are present. There is a greater than 90% chance that El Niño will continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2015-2016, and around an 80% chance that it will last through early spring 2016.” The 1996-97 El Niño was the first to be predicted by NOAA, and this alert allowed agencies including FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers, USGS, USBR, EPA, and the State of California to effectively prepare and manage the impending conditions. In California alone, the preparation was thought to reduce the damages from $2.2 billion (1982-83 El Niño) to $1.1 billion (in 1996-97). There is no substitution for preparedness. Whether you are interested in measuring flood stage conditions in real-time, monitoring reservoir levels for making safety and diversion decisions, or setting up a network of instruments to conduct long-term studies on the effects of rain/drought episodes on climate change, this webinar will educate you on the options available using acoustic Doppler technology. Learn more during this free, one-hour event presented by SonTek Product Management Director, Karen Dubey, Applications Engineer, Brittany Jenner, and guest speaker NOAA Warning Coordination Meteorologist, Alex Tardy.

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