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Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a pattern of climate variability with a similar expression to El Niño, but acting on a longer time scale, and with a pattern most clearly expressed in the North Pacific/North American sector. More about the PDO can be learned on the UW/NOAA JISAO PDO page »

Data source and calculation

Calculated by Nate Mantua (U. Washington) and and served from NOAA/ESRL (CDC) (last update 15-SEP-2016). The PDO index is based on a projection of sea surface temperature anomalies onto a pattern defined by the leading principal component of monthly SSTs in the North Pacific poleward of 20°N.

The standard deviation of the index over the period 1948-2005 is indicated on the plot. get series (netcdf 12kB) »