Effects of surface heat flux during the 1972 and 1982 El Niño episodes

Abstract

It has been suggested1,2 that anomalous surface heat flux may be partly responsible for the initial warming that occurs in the eastern Pacific during El Nino events. Sea surface temperature, net surface heat flux, and winds in the equatorial Pacific are examined here for the 1972 and 1982 El Nino episodes. It is found that surface heat flux and sea surface temperature anomalies tend to have little or negative correlation; thus, surface flux is not of major importance in the formation of thermal anomalies in the central and eastern Pacific.