Oceanic and Climatic Phenomena along the West Coast of South America during 1925

The very strong coastal El Niño in 1925 in the far-eastern Pacific

“…From the end of January through February 1925, ship drift data along the coastal track indicate southward flow north of the equator, with a speed on the order of 30-50 cm/s (Zorell 1929). Murphy (1926) also reported coastal measurements of southward flow of around 50 cm/s further south (5 and 2°S) within the same period. Schott (1931) discussed the southward progression of warm SST fronts in early 1925 using cruise data and coastal stations, with the warmest front reaching Puerto Chicama in February 27, Callao in March 12 (Fig.…”

“…Historically, however, the association of northerly winds in the FEP with EN had been noted by Eguiguren (1894) and Murphy (1926), while Schott (1931) went further to propose that these winds were the forcing of the coastal EN. This hypothesis subsequently was countered by the finding that the coastal winds tend to strengthen during EN (Wyrtki 1975;Enfield 1981;Rasmusson and Carpenter 1982) and Wooster (1980) argued that Schott failed by "underestimating the magnitude of the time and space scales involved".…”

“…Four oceanographic profiles of temperature and salinity made in the upper 200 m by a British cruise (NODC code GB012817) along the coast between Ecuador and Panama between April 17-19, 1925 (Table S1) were retrieved from the World Ocean Database 2013 (WOD13; http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/ OC5/SELECT/dbsearch/dbsearch.html). We also digitized selected meteorological, hydrological, and oceanographic data from tables and graphs in Murphy (1926), Zegarra (1926), Berry (1927), Zorell (1929), Bailey (1930), Schott (1931, Sheppard (1930Sheppard ( , 1933, Petersen (1935), Schaeffer et al (1958), Woodman (1985), and Reparaz (2013).…”

“…In 1891, in addition to warm water along the northern coast of Peru, carcasses of crocodiles and tree debris from north of 3°S were found at 8°S (Carranza 1891). In 1925, the report at 4.6°S of a lizard not previously found in Peru but abundant off Ecuador at 3.2°S (Murphy 1926(Murphy ) and, in 1926, of seeds at 4.6°S The anomalies are calculated with respect to the SODA 1920-1939 climatology, except around the Galapagos were SODA is less reliable of mangroves that are found to the north of 3.6°S (Berry 1927), are also indications of southward advection. From the end of January through February 1925, ship drift data along the coastal track indicate southward flow north of the equator, with a speed on the order of 30-50 cm/s (Zorell 1929).…”

“…1b-f). It was due to the detailed report of this event by Murphy (1926) that "El Niño burst onto the international scientific scene" as a legitimate research topic (Cushman 2004), leading to the discovery by Berlage in 1929 (Cushman 2004) of the statistical relation between EN variability, using an index of rainfall in northern Peru (Eguiguren 1894) as a proxy, and the large-scale atmospheric Southern Oscillation (Walker 1924), culminating with the concept of ENSO, an essentially coupled ocean-atmosphere phemonenon (Bjerknes 1969).…”