How do you build a simple model of complicated processes? For Ping Chang, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University in College Station, it involved drawing on a diverse group of specialists.

On page 324, the collaborators discuss the link between the Pacific El Niño and the Atlantic Niño. Chang's interest in this relationship was sparked after conversations with scientists at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University in New York. “From their experience working on climate-related issues in Africa, I learnt how important it is to understand and to predict Atlantic Niño,” Chang says.

But unravelling how two geographically separate processes affect each other was not easy. Chang turned to graduate student Yue Fang, who built on the success of a climate model from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado.

Working with Howard Seidel and Link Ji, Fang ironed out some of the potential glitches in the model. Ramalingam Saravanan helped the team to couple the NCAR atmospheric model to a simplified ocean model, allowing them to achieve their goal.

“Saravanan not only contributed intellectually to this work, but also provided assistance in statistical analysis of the data,” says Chang.