Interannual and Intraseasonal Variability in the Southern Hemisphere

The aim of this chapter is to examine the temporal and spatial variability of the troposphere over the Southern Hemisphere and, in the case of El Niño/Southern Oscillation, link it to fluctuations in the tropical oceans as well. In the time since the first volume on Southern Hemisphere meteorology appeared in 1972, it has been possible to examine in much more detail the variability of the SH atmosphere, due to the vast improvements in the amount and quality of data that have since become available. Despite this progress, vast regions of the southern oceans remain very poorly observed. Fortunately, advances in remote sensing by satellite have done much to fill in some of the existing gaps in the ship- and ground-based observing network.