Key Points

Only 17 years ago one of this centurys most powerful El Nios took us completely by surprise. In 1982 scientific experts had come to a consensus that no El Nio was forming, even as waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean near Peru were already heating with inevitable and catastrophic momentum. All told, the El Nio that wasnt going to happen led to thousands of deaths and an estimated $13 billion in damage. El Nio, which persisted from the winter of 1983 into the spring of 1983, emerged a scientific breakthrough. The ocean and atmosphere continuously shift in response to each other The two never achieve equilibrium; one side of the seesaw is either up or down. Each position creates its own distinct set of climate conditions. The rhythm is complexbut it isnt random. In his 30-year quest, he collected and analyzed meteorological observations from stations all over the globe. He found that the air pressure at sea level in the Pacific seesawed up and down across a region ranging from Australia to South America. When it was high in Darwin, Australia, in the western Pacific, and low in Tahiti, in the central Pacific, there was heavy rain in the central equatorial Pacific, drought in India, a warm winter in southwestern Canada and a cold one in the southeastern U.S. Every few years the air pressures in Darwin and Tahiti reversed, and so did climate conditions in various regions in the world. Walker called this atmospheric pattern the Southern Oscillation, but critics derided his theory, doubting that such far flung climate changes could be linked. Despite his zealous data gathering, he took no account of the ocean and made no connection with El Nio, which had been documented as early as the 16th century.

Authors Points
This article is basically talking about El nino and the history of it and how when it first happened we didnt know what was happening and what was causing this to happen. El nino has been going on since 1965 and we still dont really have a clear reason of why this is happening but we

do know what happens during an EL nino. I believe that the author was trying to tell us about the different El nino positions and how all three have a different effect on us.

Summary
After reading this article El nino causes droughts and La nina causes floods but during normal conditions theres a good amount of rain that doesnt cause droughts but doesnt cause any floods. Australia is effect the most by El nino and La nino it can either have a drought or have floods. It all depends on the southeast trade winds because that the source of it all and depend on how and where there blowing depends on if you get El nino or La nino