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Post on Jacob Bjerknes & the Discovery of ENSO (1966/1969) — Image Research & Licensing Report

All images downloaded to /home/michal/repos/michalbrennek.github.io/assets/images/.

Previously committed (DO NOT re-download):

  • Jacob_Bjerknes.jpg (Arakawa post) — the 1968 headshot already available for this post.
  • UCLA_campus.jpg (Arakawa post) — the Mathematical Sciences Building, Bjerknes’s institutional home.
  • Thermohaline_conveyor.png (Bryan post) — could illustrate the broader ocean-circulation context if needed.

Image: Gilbert_Walker.jpg

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gilbert_Walker.jpg
  • Direct file: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Gilbert_Walker.jpg
  • License: Public domain. Copyright expired in India (author unknown, published 1925) and the image is also PD in the United States (pre-1929 foreign publication). Commons tags: / .
  • Author: Unknown (official photographer, Meteorological Department of the Government of India).
  • Source publication: Administration Report of the Meteorological Department for the year 1924-25 and A history of the Department during the half century 1875-1924, Government of India, Simla, 1925.
  • Credit line (for figcaption): Sir Gilbert Walker (1868-1958), Director-General of Observatories in India, whose 1924 Southern Oscillation papers defined the atmospheric half of ENSO decades before Bjerknes linked it to the ocean. Portrait from the India Meteorological Department’s 1925 half-century report, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
  • Dimensions: 391 x 527 px
  • Notes: Small file but perfectly adequate for a portrait inset. This is the canonical Walker image used on Wikipedia. Provenance — a GoI departmental publication — makes the PD status unambiguous. No higher-resolution scan appears to exist on any free platform.

Image: Walker_circulation.png

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walker-Zirkulation.png
  • Direct file: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Walker-Zirkulation.png
  • License: Public domain. Tagged / on Commons — the diagram is “simple geometry” deemed ineligible for copyright. Originally uploaded to German Wikipedia (2005/2007) and transferred to Commons in 2017.
  • Author: Schlusenbach (2005) and Pyxlyst (2007), de.wikipedia contributors — credited in the file history; the image itself is public domain.
  • Credit line (for figcaption): Schematic of the Walker circulation: rising air over the warm western Pacific, sinking air over the cool eastern Pacific, closed by easterly trade winds at the surface and westerlies aloft. Diagram via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).
  • Dimensions: 1141 x 262 px
  • Notes: Labels are in German (Nordamerika, Südamerika, Ostwind, Westwind, warm/kalt). Simple enough to be near-universal; the key geometry (rising over Indonesia, sinking over South America, zonal arrows) is what matters. If a fully English-labelled version is preferred, consider redoing with Circulation de Walker.png (PD, French) — but note that every Walker-circulation diagram on Commons is in a non-English language; the only English-labelled diagrams are the El Niño / normal / La Niña NOAA schematics listed below.

Image: El_Nino_SST.png

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_Ni%C3%B1o_begins_in_2015.png
  • Direct file: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/El_Ni%C3%B1o_begins_in_2015.png
  • Original source: https://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail2.php?MediaID=1680&MediaTypeID=1
  • License: Public domain — U.S. federal-government work (NOAA employee, official duties). Commons tag: .
  • Author: NOAA / NESDIS (National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service)
  • Date: February 2015 SST anomaly, released 5 March 2015
  • Credit line (for figcaption): Sea-surface temperature anomaly for February 2015, with the warm tongue across the equatorial Pacific marking the onset of the 2015-16 El Niño — precisely the pattern Bjerknes predicted from weakened trade winds in 1966/1969. NOAA/NESDIS satellite composite, public domain.
  • Dimensions: 4096 x 2048 px (equirectangular global projection)
  • Notes: High-resolution NOAA product, globally mapped, with the diagnostic warm tongue clearly visible. Slightly cold-toned colour scheme. The 2015-16 event is the strongest on the satellite record after 1997-98 and well-illustrated in NOAA’s public-domain library.

Image: ENSO_schematic.svg

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ElNino-schematisch.svg
  • Direct file: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/ElNino-schematisch.svg
  • License: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication — creator waived all rights.
  • Author: Mrmw (SVG vectorization, 2017); based on earlier work by Geografik.
  • Credit line (for figcaption): Schematic of normal (La Niña-like) conditions versus El Niño conditions in the equatorial Pacific — tilted thermocline, trade-wind collapse, shifted convection. Diagram by Wikimedia Commons user Mrmw (CC0, public domain).
  • Dimensions: 1266 x 530 px nominal SVG viewport (scales losslessly).
  • Notes: Labels are in German (“Normalzustand”, “El Niño”, “Thermokline”, “Passatwind”). The layout is self-explanatory with arrows showing trade-wind direction, warm-pool location, and thermocline slope; reader can infer the labels from context, or the figcaption can translate them. If an English-only diagram is required, NOAA’s “La Niña Conditions.jpg” / “El Niño Conditions” pair (both PD) would work but is much lower resolution (503 x 359).

Image: Peruvian_fishery.jpg

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bah%C3%ADa_El_Ferrol,_Chimbote_01.jpg
  • Direct file: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Bah%C3%ADa_El_Ferrol%2C_Chimbote_01.jpg
  • License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).
  • Author: Carlo Brescia (Wikimedia user “Felino Volador”), photographed during a WikiAcción Perú tour, 10 September 2023.
  • Credit line (for figcaption): Fishing boats at Bahía El Ferrol, Chimbote — Peru’s largest anchoveta port and historically the world’s biggest single-species fishery, whose 1972-73 collapse during the El Niño of that year gave ENSO its global economic significance. Photo by Carlo Brescia, 2023, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
  • Dimensions: 6000 x 4000 px
  • Notes: Modern photo, not historical, but shows the working artisanal fleet in the classic El Ferrol bay — the setting of the anchoveta collapse. Well-composed, high-resolution. CC BY-SA requires attribution and share-alike.

Image: TAO_mooring.jpg

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NOAAS_Ka_imimoana_(R_333)_servicing_Atlas_buoy.jpg
  • Direct file: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/NOAAS_Ka_imimoana_%28R_333%29_servicing_Atlas_buoy.jpg
  • License: Public domain — NOAA work (Commons tag ).
  • Author: NOAA photo, from the NOAA Photo Library.
  • Date: Post-1996 (after the Ka’imimoana’s commissioning).
  • Credit line (for figcaption): The NOAA ship Ka’imimoana services an ATLAS mooring in the equatorial Pacific — part of the TAO/TRITON array that has continuously monitored the ocean half of ENSO since the early 1990s, turning Bjerknes’s hypothesis into real-time forecasting. NOAA Photo Library, public domain.
  • Dimensions: 1768 x 1140 px
  • Notes: Shows the actual hardware of modern ENSO observation — a yellow ATLAS toroid being recovered/deployed from the deck. Direct visual payoff for the “how we now measure what Bjerknes predicted” beat.

Image: header-enso.jpg

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Strong_El_Ni%C3%B1o_Continues_(NESDIS_2015-11-12).png
  • Direct file (source): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Strong_El_Ni%C3%B1o_Continues_%28NESDIS_2015-11-12%29.png
  • License: Public domain — NOAA/NESDIS work ().
  • Author: NOAA/NESDIS, 12 November 2015.
  • Credit line (for figcaption, if header caption is used): Header: NOAA/NESDIS sea-surface temperature anomaly for October 2015, peak of the 2015-16 El Niño.
  • Dimensions: 1600 x 900 px (16:9), resampled from the 1920 x 1080 source using Lanczos resampling (PIL/Pillow).
  • Notes: The source is already 16:9, so a clean straight resize preserves the equirectangular global map. The diagnostic warm tongue is centred, making a dramatic and immediately readable header that doubles as a thematic poster for the post.

Images considered and NOT downloaded

Peruvian anchoveta industrial fishery (1970s archival) — NOT AVAILABLE under free license

  • Looked for historical photos of the 1960s-70s Chimbote industrial fleet (peak anchoveta boom) to accompany the 1972-73 collapse story. Wikimedia Commons has only one archival photo (“Emigrantes galegos en Chimbote, 1956”) and it is a group portrait of Galician emigrants, not the fishery. All detailed archival imagery sits behind paywalls (Getty, AP) or in Peruvian national archives with unclear licensing.
  • Decision: Use the 2023 Carlo Brescia Bahía El Ferrol photo (same location, same industry) and note the date. Alternative: skip the fishery image entirely if the post does not dwell on the 1972 collapse.

Kelvin wave / Rossby wave propagation schematic — NOT DOWNLOADED

  • As flagged in the task, Commons has several ENSO-related wave diagrams but most appear to be redrawn from textbook figures with unclear provenance. The ElNino-schematisch.svg already conveys the tilted-thermocline intuition that the text needs; a separate wave-propagation figure would be nice-to-have but is not essential.
  • Decision: Skip. Post can describe Kelvin/Rossby waves in prose.

IGY 1957-58 historical photo — NOT DOWNLOADED

  • Commons has a few IGY-related images (rocket launches, research stations) but nothing that cleanly illustrates the Pacific oceanographic programme that first revealed the 1957-58 El Niño. Most are Antarctic or space-programme themed. Using one would misdirect the reader.
  • Decision: Skip. The post can reference IGY in prose; no image adds value.

Gilbert Walker at work in Simla — NOT FOUND

  • The 1925 GoI report portrait (downloaded) is the only known freely-licensed Walker image. No photos of Walker in his Simla office or with his computing staff have surfaced on free platforms. The Royal Society’s “Science in the Making” portal has Walker letters but not open-license portraits.
  • Decision: The single portrait is sufficient. Gap documented.

Modern El Niño animation / ocean colour — CONSIDERED, NOT DOWNLOADED

  • NASA has GIF/MP4 ENSO animations (e.g., the 1997-98 “Pacific warm tongue propagation” SeaWiFS loop). These are public domain but animated content is awkward inside a static Jekyll post. The still SST map already communicates the key spatial pattern.
  • Decision: Skip for this pass. Revisit if the post author wants a looping figure.

Summary

  • 7 images downloaded and verified. All pass file sanity checks.
    • Gilbert_Walker.jpg (391 x 527, PD-India 1925)
    • Walker_circulation.png (1141 x 262, PD-shape, German labels)
    • El_Nino_SST.png (4096 x 2048, NOAA PD, Feb 2015 SST anomaly)
    • ENSO_schematic.svg (vector, CC0, German labels)
    • Peruvian_fishery.jpg (6000 x 4000, CC BY-SA 4.0, Chimbote 2023)
    • TAO_mooring.jpg (1768 x 1140, NOAA PD, Ka’imimoana servicing ATLAS buoy)
    • header-enso.jpg (1600 x 900, derived from NOAA PD, 2015 SST anomaly)
  • Plus 3 images already committed and reusable: Jacob_Bjerknes.jpg, UCLA_campus.jpg, Thermohaline_conveyor.png.
  • Gaps: no archival 1970s anchoveta fishery, no Kelvin/Rossby schematic, no IGY-ENSO-specific photo. All three are flagged above; none are load-bearing for the post’s argument.
  • Caveats:
    • Two of the schematics (Walker_circulation.png, ENSO_schematic.svg) carry German labels. If the blog’s editorial policy requires English labels, the NOAA “La Niña Conditions.jpg” (503 x 359, PD) + a matching “El Niño Conditions” PD companion can be swapped in at lower resolution.
    • Peruvian_fishery.jpg is CC BY-SA 4.0 — the figcaption MUST credit “Carlo Brescia, CC BY-SA 4.0” and the post should retain share-alike terms for its own reuse. If the blog prefers PD-only, drop this image.
    • All NOAA/NASA material is PD in the US; attribution is courtesy, not legally required.