El Nio

Andrew Wells - WLPCS

What is El Nio?
El Nio refers to unusually warm ocean
temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific.



Why is it called El Nio?
El Nio means The Little Boy or Christ child in
Spanish. This name was used for the tendency
of the phenomenon to arrive around
Christmas.
Why does this happen?
Normally, trade winds blow
towards the west across the
tropical Pacific.

Basically the warm surface water
piles up in the west Pacific.
New Gineau, Indonesia and The Philippines

Typically the largest store of warm water in the ocean.

Normal
What does El Nio look like?
No, but seriously...
Early El Nio
Answer now on your paper: Why might warm water be spreading to the East?
Normal El Nio
Weakening Trade winds = El Nio
and the warm water escapes to the east

Red is 30 degrees C and blue is 8 degrees C.
SO, during an El Nio year, trade winds weaken
and...
Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) warm in the
East as water escapes the Equatorial West
Pacific

Sea level height changes, as well
Normal
El Nio
Why does El Nio occur?

We don't know what initiates El Nio. But it
apparently does not take much to destabilize
the strong-trade-wind/large-temperature-
contrast non-El Nio state

Complicated, but unstable air-sea interaction and planetary
scale oceanic waves.

The system oscillates between warm (El Nio) to neutral (or
cold) conditions
Why was El Nio such a big deal in
1998?

The 1997-98 El Nio was the strongest on
record, and it developed more rapidly than
any El Nio of the past 40 years. As a result,
we started to see its impacts on weather,
marine ecosystems and fisheries very quickly,
and these impacts were spectacular.
Consequences and Implications of
El Nio




Worldwide
Unseasonable weather events
Changes in precipitation, winds, temperatures
Drought
Floods click
Disease
Crop loss


US/Regional
The impacts of El Nio upon climate in temperate latitudes show up most
clearly during wintertime. For example, most El Nio winters are mild over
western Canada and parts of the northern United States, and wet over the
southern United States from Texas to Florida.













For more:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/impacts.html#part5


Can we haul icebergs down there?


so this has actually been asked.


moving on.




How can we detect El Nio?
Satelite data
Drifting buoys
Tethered buoys
Research vessels
Sea level monitoring

MORE ON THIS AT THE END.
Recap
Slides 1, 15 and 18 have clickable pictures that
bring up additional media