[1] Decadal changes of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) persistence barriers in various indices of sea surface temperature (SST) and ocean heat content (OHC) are examined in this study using observations and ocean data assimilation products for the period 1958–2001. It is found that the SST indices in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific exhibit very different decadal barrier variabili...

Climate, behavior, ecology, and oceanography shape patterns of biodiversity in marine faunas in the absence of obvious geographic barriers. Marine turtles are an example of highly migratory creatures with deep evolutionary lineages and complex life histories that span both terrestrial and marine environments. Previous studies have focused on the deep isolation of evolutionary lineages (>3 mya) ...

Low-frequency sea level variationswith periods longer than interannual time scales have been receivingmuch attention recently, with the aim of distinguishing the anthropogenic regional sea level change signal from the natural fluctuations. Based on the available sea level products, this study finds that the dominant low-frequency sea level mode in the Pacific basin has both quasi-decadal variat...

Retrospective analyses of Pacific Basin climate records highlight the existence of a pan-Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation. We find strong evidence for coherent patterns of interdecadal variability in Pacific winds, sea level pressures, and upper ocean temperatures. Collectively, the ocean-atmosphere pattern of variability has been labeled the “Pacific Decadal Oscillation”, or PDO. An in...

The phylogenetic relationship among the salmonid fishes of the genus Oncorhynchus has been analyzed using various kinds of markers for a long time. However, there are three major disagreements among those studies; (1) the authenticity of the Pacific salmon group as a monophyletic cluster, (2) the phylogenetic relationship among three Pacific salmons (pink salmon, sockeye salmon, and chum salmon...

To understand sources of variability in the eastern equatorial Pacific, a region integral to modulating global temperatures, the waters upwelling from the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) are characterized. Past work is updated using temperature and salinity measurements from the Argo array and current measurements from Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) buoys. A larger hemispheric asymmetry is found...

Pacific Economic Bulletin Volume 21 Number 2 2006 © Asia Pacific Press The paper discusses how the principal-agent theory of economics may provide a suitable analytical framework and interesting lessons for the targeting of public expenditure management reforms in Pacific island economies. Elisabeth Paul is FNRS Research Fellow, University of Liège. Lessons from principal-agent theory for publi...

The ascidian fauna of the Pacific coast of Panama is poorly known and only recently four species in the family Ascidiidae were reported on. Ascidia is the only known genus of Ascidiidae in Pacific Panama waters. In the present research, we describe a new species, Ascidia sideralis sp. nov., and we document the new occurrence of A. cf. gemmata and A. cf. liberata (both previously known to the We...

Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum launched a process that could ultimately produce the largest single act of trade liberalization in history. They agreed to " seriously consider " negotiating a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) and instructed their officials to " undertake further studies on ways and means to promote " the initiative so that they could address it at their...