The Ocean of Change

[Enrique]

The harmless oceans have been known to change
The temperature of its water are
Non-constant, so variable; its reigns
So unpredictable tells near and far
The atmosphere so naturally harmed
By many cyclones that wreak through the shoreline
Of the warm waters that ascend and come hard
And thrash across the land; but within time
The seas' warmness retreats; waters become
Cool again, and the rain, it pours down on
The land; the trees tell when its stages' done
And periods change again, and upon
Its change, the earth dries out, tropics rage once
Again, and repeats; pattern known by none.

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And, tada, my (horrible) sonnet about weather; who knew it was going to be on weather; well, I guess you can classify me as a "freak" or "weather weenie," if you want. Yeah, topic so incredibly unexcepted. Anyway, I've been working on this since Sunday, and even though this is my first sonnet, and first poem in a long while, I still like it, even though it's not exactly Shakespearian style. This poem is on the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation, which some of you may be familiar with, primarily because I yap about it on a fairly consisent basis. But this poem sort of outlines the AMO in a fashion to understand the topic a little more.

The first line basically introduces the fact that the AMO is the index of the variability in sea surface temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic Ocean. For those of you that are confused already, it means that the AMO is the series of sea surface temperature changes in the North Atlantic Ocean. The second through fourth lines tell that these changes in sea surface temperatures are practically unpredictable, most notably in the shift between warm and cool shifts of the AMO, as researched by Enfield and Sid-Cerrano [2006]¹.

The fifth through eighth lines assume a warm phase of the AMO, by the reference of many cyclones, or assumed in this poem as hurricanes. It has been known that hyperactive hurricane activity has occurred in the presence of above average sea surface temperature values², such as in the warm phase of the AMO³.

The ninth and tenth lines signify a shift from a warm phase to a cool phase, as the sea surface temperature values decrease again. The clause "and the rain, it pours down" is assuming the fact that the continental United States receives more rainfall during the cool AMO stage, since prolonged droughts have been known to occur during warm AMO stages⁴. The eleventh line tells that trees contain historical data of past AMO shifts; Gray, et al. [2004] reconstructed the AMO index of a 424-year period using tree-ring records⁵.

The twelfth and thirteenth lines assume another AMO shift, back to the warm stage. The thirteenth line tells of "the earth drying out," again revisiting the research of McCabe, et al. [2004] on the AMO and drought frequency in the continental U.S.⁴ The line also signifies that the "tropics rage once again," revisiting the analysis of the AMO's effect on hurricane activity². The final line of the poem repeats the theory that there is no pattern to AMO phase shifts; they are totally unpredictable in exact projection¹.

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References:

¹Enfield, D. B. and L. Cid-Serrano, 2006: Projecting the Risk of Future Climate Shifts. International Journal of Climatology, in press.
²Goldenberg, S. B.., C. W. Landsea, A. M. Mestas-Nuñez, and W. M. Gray, 2001: The Recent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity: Causes and implications. Science, 293, 474-479.
³Enfield, D. B., A. M. Mestas-Nuñez, and P. J. Trimble, 2001: The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation and its relation to rainfall and river flows in the continental U.S. Geophysical Research Letters, 28, 2077-2080.
⁴McCabe, G. J., M. A. Palecki, and J. L. Betancourt, 2004: Pacific and Atlantic Ocean influences on multidecadal drought frequency in the United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101, 4136-4141.
⁵Gray, S. T., J. L. Graumlich, J. L. Betancourt, and G. T. Pederson, 2004: A tree-ring based reconstruction of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation since 1567 A.D. Geophysical Research Letters, 31, L12205, doi:10.1029/2004GL019932.

[contention]

See, See; I told you that you could write poetry. But "Noooooo" You didn't think you could now did you. Well look at that above poem, it begs to differ very much so. See that beauty, you did wonderful in your writing and finding the stanzas to gather together to rhyme. Also, with much grace you kept it flowing, enough so to keep sentences going through multiple lines. That takes a lot of effort, yet you have seem to accomplished it with furiosity. More than just a lovely job, for you have conquered this with much ease. Writing is no easy task, but you had it in you to make this more than just what it stands for. While it has the scientific means, one could also pull many metaphorical lines from this.

See as well, it's hard to write a short summary of a poem! You proved this, yet however that proves that you took the time and consideration to look throughout information to help you. Doing that greatly established the means that you were going for. All in all the poem seems to frill through this with ease and can be read with a quirk. You quite accomplished the means of what poetry can be. Grand Job Enrique.

[Leoshi]

I agree with Contention, this is rather nice work! I like the use of words, you said you did not do this well and yet I see it's soemthing you pretty much have nailed. You should do more of these, Enrique. Seriously, nice work!