1976 step in the Pacific climate: forty environmental changes between 1968-1975 and 1977-1984

Ebbesmeyer, Curtis C. and Cayan, Daniel R. and McLain, Douglas R. and Nichols, Frederic H. and Peterson, David H. and Redmond, Kelly T. (1991) 1976 step in the Pacific climate: forty environmental changes between 1968-1975 and 1977-1984. In: Betancourt, J.L. and Tharp, V.L. (eds.) Proceedings of the Seventh annual Pacific Climate (PACLIM) Workshop : Asilomar, California -- April, 1990. West Sacramento, CA, California Department of Water Resources. Interagency Ecology Studies Program., pp. 115-126. (California Department of Water Resources. Interagency Ecology Studies Program.Technical Report,26)

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Abstract

Examination of 40 times series of multidisciplinary environmental variables from the Pacific Ocean and the Americas, collected in 1968 to 1984, demonstrated the remarkable consistency of a major climate-related, step-like change in 1976. to combine the 40 variables (e.g. air and water temperatures, Southern Oscillation, chlorophyll, geese, salmon, crabs, glaciers, atmospheric dust, coral, CO(sub 2), winds, ice cover, Bering Strait transport) into a single time series, standard variants of individual annual values (substracting the mean and dviding by a standard deviation) were averaged. Analysis of the resulting time series showed that the single step in 1976, separating the 1968-1975 period from the 1977-1984 period, accounted for 89% of variance within the compositie time series. Apparently, one of the Earth's large ecosystems occasionally undergoes large abrupt shifts.

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