NASA Watching North Pacific Water Temperatures, Waiting For N. American Impacts - Baltimore Sun

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Water temperatures in the North Pacific are changing, and NASA climatologists say the patterns they've seen in recent months may affect temperature and rainfall trends in the United States for decades to come. They could bring enhanced hurricane activity in the Atlantic, and more mild winters in Central Maryland, like this last one.

They could produce more dry weather for the parched Southwest and Southeast, and cooler temperatures with even more rain than normal in the Northwest, the upper Midwest and the Great Lakes. Or not.

The problem with predicting the impact on East Coast weather is that the connections between climate cycles in the Pacific and Eastern weather are complicated by many other factors, including yet another cycle of ocean temperature and air pressure called the North Atlantic Oscillation, or NAO. That said, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California report that the water temperatures of the North Pacific have now entered the "cool phase" of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a natural cycle that can last for 20 to 30 years.

The warm and cool phases of the PDO are similar to the warm and cool phases farther south in the tropical Pacific known as El Nino and La Nina. But the PDO cycles last much longer - decades, versus 6 to 18 months for an El Nino or La Nina.

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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/ideas/bal-id.climate25may25,0,3477149.story