Allan J. Clarke

Research

As part of our on-going work on El Niño, our group operationally predicts El Niño conditions for the next 12 months. The prediction model is based on the idea that if you know where to look, you can see changes in El Niño coming. Current predictions are given here.

Our current El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) research includes the construction of accurate monthly ENSO indices back to the early 1870s so that observational and theoretical conjectures about interannual and decadal ocean-atmosphere variability in the equatorial Pacific can be tested.

Rock Lobster Photo Other current work involves the physics of climate variability in the coastal ocean and its linkage to fisheries. For some time we have known that coastal ocean conditions can change irregularly from year to year and from decade to decade. Rock Lobster Photo However, it is only recently, with the availability of more than 10 years of continuous and on-going world-wide satellite estimates of sea level, that we have been able to test relevant theory and analyze how coastal ocean climate changes affect marine life. For example, even weak flows on a long time scale can, on average, move freely drifting nutrients, eggs, and larvae long distances and dramatically change the coastal environment. Just imagine if 80% of the human population were wiped out periodically because of climate change! Such events are commonplace for some coastal marine life. Our studies so far have included rock lobsters of Western Australia, "salmon" on Australia's southern coast, zooplankton and squid in the California Current, and brown shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico.