TOGA was instrumental in developing a comprehensive observing system for the equatorial Pacific Ocean and laid important groundwork for ENSO prediction, data assimilation and understanding of air-sea interaction.
The roots of the TOGA program can be traced back to the 1920s and the work of Sir Gilbert Walker on what became known as the Southern Oscillation, an apparent linkage between atmospheric pressure anomalies throughout the Pacific Ocean that appeared to be a major driver of weather patterns.
[1] This work was furthered by Jacob Bjerknes in the 1960s when he solidified the link between the El Nino phenomena, a winter warm anomaly in the normally cool water off the coast of Peru, with the southern oscillation.
[2] The combined El Nino – Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, turned out to be a major contributor to seasonal climate variability with both human and economic implications.
While traditional methods such as ships of opportunity and inland tide gauges were employed, the crowning achievement was the deploying of the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean project (TAO) Array.
Its primary mission was to examine the western pacific warming pool region specifically for: The TOGA-COARE experiment resulted in improved understanding of atmospheric and oceanic variability on interseasonal scales including phenomena such as the Madden–Julian oscillation and westerly wind bursts.
The TOGA program directly resulted in improved theoretical understanding of the ENSO cycle, including interactions between trade wind variations and sea surface temperature.