Ningaloo Niņo
In early 2011, ocean temperatures along the west coast
of Australia were the highest ever recorded (Pearce and Feng 2013). This
resulted in the first ever recorded bleaching event in the pristine World
Heritage Ningaloo Reef and massive die off of economically important fish
species off the west coast. This unprecedented marine heat wave has been termed
the Ningaloo Niņo (Feng et al. 2013),
in analogy with other coastal Niņos,
such as Benguela Niņo.
The 2010-2011 Ningaloo Niņo was mostly induced by an unseasonable surge of the Leeuwin
Current during one of the
strongest La Niņas on record.
Both remote wind anomalies in the equatorial western Pacific and local
alongshore wind anomalies are important in accelerating the Leeuwin Current
during the event.
Media links
ABC
7.30 Report (12 October 2012)
CSIRO
media release (21 February 2013)
UNESCO
website (25 February 2013)
The
West Australia (on Yahoo 7 )
Ningaloo Niņo publications
Pearce A. and Feng, M. (2013). The rise and fall of the
"marine heat wave" off Western Australia during the summer of
2010/11. Journal of Marine Systems. 111-112, 139-156. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmarsys.2012.10.009.
Feng, M., McPhaden, M.J., Xie, S. & Hafner, J. La Niņa forcesunprecedented Leeuwin
Current warming in 2011. Sci. Rep. 3, 1277; DOI:10.1038/srep01277
(2013).
Doi, T., Behera, S.K. & Yamagata, T. Predictability of
the Ningaloo Niņo/Niņa. Sci. Rep. 3,
2892; DOI:10.1038/srep02892
(2013).
Kataoka T, Tozuka T, Behera SK,
Yamagata T (2013) On the Ningaloo Niņo/Niņa. Clim. Dyn.
doi:10.1007/s00382-013-1961-z.