page_title: El Niño–Southern Oscillation
section_title: Madden–Julian oscillation
hierarchical_section_title: El Niño–Southern Oscillation / Madden–Julian oscillation
caption_attribution_description: English: Daily Madden-Julian Oscillation Indice for 2 October 2006
context_page_description: El Niño–Southern Oscillation is an irregularly periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, affecting the climate of much of the tropics and subtropics. The warming phase of the sea temperature is known as El Niño and the cooling phase as La Niña. The Southern Oscillation is the accompanying atmospheric component, coupled with the sea temperature change: El Niño is accompanied by high air surface pressure in the tropical western Pacific and La Niña with low air surface pressure there. The two periods last several months each and typically occur every few years with varying intensity per period.
  The two phases relate to the Walker circulation, which was discovered by Gilbert Walker during the early twentieth century. The Walker circulation is caused by the pressure gradient force that results from a High-pressure area over the eastern Pacific Ocean, and a low-pressure system over Indonesia. Weakening or reversal of the Walker circulation decreases or eliminates the upwelling of cold deep sea water, thus creating an El Niño by causing the ocean surface to reach above average temperatures.
context_section_description: The Madden–Julian oscillation, or (MJO), is the largest element of the intraseasonal (30- to 90-day) variability in the tropical atmosphere, and was discovered by Roland Madden and Paul Julian of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in 1971. It is a large-scale coupling between atmospheric circulation and tropical deep convection. Rather than being a standing pattern like the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the MJO is a traveling pattern that propagates eastward at approximately 4 to 8 m/s (14 to 29 km/h; 9 to 18 mph), through the atmosphere above the warm parts of the Indian and Pacific oceans. This overall circulation pattern manifests itself in various ways, most clearly as anomalous rainfall.  The wet phase of enhanced convection and precipitation is followed by a dry phase where thunderstorm activity is suppressed.  Each cycle lasts approximately 30–60 days. Because of this pattern, The MJO is also known as the 30- to 60-day oscillation, 30- to 60-day wave, or intraseasonal oscillation.
  There is strong year-to-year (interannual) variability in MJO activity, with long periods of strong activity followed by periods in which the oscillation is weak or absent. This interannual variability of the MJO is partly linked to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. In the Pacific, strong MJO activity is often observed 6 – 12 months prior to the onset of an El Niño episode, but is virtually absent during the maxima of some El Niño episodes, while MJO activity is typically greater during a La Niña episode.  Strong events in the Madden–Julian oscillation over a series of months in the western Pacific can speed the development of an El Niño or La Niña but usually do not in themselves lead to the onset of a warm or cold ENSO event.  However, observations suggest that the 1982–1983 El Niño developed rapidly during July 1982 in direct response to a Kelvin wave triggered by an MJO event during late May. Further, changes in the structure of the MJO with the seasonal cycle and ENSO might facilitate more substantial impacts of the MJO on ENSO. For example, the surface westerly winds associated with active MJO convection are stronger during advancement toward El Niño and the surface easterly winds associated with the suppressed convective phase are stronger during advancement toward La Nina.
caption: A Hovmöller diagram of the 5-day running mean of outgoing longwave radiation showing the MJO. Time increases from top to bottom in the figure, so contours that are oriented from upper-left to lower-right represent movement from west to east.
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