El Niño and La Niña are opposite states of one of Earth’s most important climate processes together constituting the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It can lead to devastating weather events all over the world. But how does it work, what kinds of extreme weather does it cause and how is global warming affecting it?
The ENSO observed during the 1997/1998 period was a legendary one. It appears 2023/2024 could be another significant ENSO event. Since 1950 the amplitudes of El Niño and La Niña have been getting stronger.
The Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array was deployed in 1984 as a network of buoys that measure surface winds, surface temperature, upper ocean temperature and ocean currents by NOAA. Scientists ability to predict the ’82-’83 El Niño was hampered by a volcanic eruption. Satellites were obscured and falsely the sea surface temperatures were measured lower by a few degrees. The TAO array played a major role for scientists forecast the on-coming of the ’97-’98 El Niño.
El Niño also appears to suppress the formation of hurricanes over the Atlantic Ocean by moving the jetstream towards south. The position of jetstream coincides with the main development region of Atlantic hurricanes and prevents hurricanes to increase their intensities. Scientists also began to pay more attention to Kelvin waves that are formed as ocean’s response to winds. Kelvin waves move along the equator and are forced to travel west-to-east — a result of Coriolis forces created by Earth’s rotation. As the waves travel towards South America they depress the thermocline. These waves take about three months to cross the Pacific from west to east. How are El Niño/La Niña related to the Southern Oscillation (ENSO)? El Niño/La Niña are oceanic phenomena, while the Southern Oscillation is an atmospheric phenomenon.
What is in store for 2023/2024? After three successive La Niña years it appears a record’ breaking El Niño is on the way. El Niño dumps a lot of heat to the surface of the ocean and thus instigates a number of strong meteorological events across the world.
0 Comments
You can be the first one to leave a comment.