El Niño and Outgoing Longwave Radiation: Observations from Nimbus-7 ERB

Abstract

Five years of broad-band earth radiation budget measurements taken by the Nimbus-7 ERB experiment have been archived. This period encompasses the 1982/83 El Niño/Southern Oscillation event, which reached a peak near the beginning of the fifth data year (January 1983). A 41-month outgoing longwave radiation subset of this data set, extending from June 1980 through October 1983, has been further processed to enhance the spatial resolution. Analysis of the resultant fields and the anomalies from the pre-El Niño climatology provides the first broad-band glimpse of the terrestrial outgoing longwave radiative response to the El Niño event throughout its life cycle. Of particular interest are the quasi-stationary planetary-scale tropical and midlatitude patterns which emerge as the El Niño reaches its peak intensity. Important new implications to the vertical motion field are addressed.