El Niño & La Niña
Two phenomenon
that can change our planet
as we know it...
that can change our planet
as we know it...
We know that there are many anthropogenic forcings on the climate, particularly the volume of carbon and greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere as a part of our everyday lives. Yet there are a number of natural processes that affect local weather, regional climate and global conditions. Some effects on our climate are a result of fluctuations and anomalies in the complex water conveyor belts of the ocean currents of the world. These fluctuations are known as “oscillations” and the two best-known oscillations are El Niño and La Niña
Let’s make some history
The El Niño phenomenon (the little boy in Spanish, and by extension the "Child Jesus") was named in the late 1800s by Peruvian sailors who had observed the appearance of a warm current during the period of Christmas.
This current corresponds to a warmer phase than usual called the Southern Oscillation El Niño or ENSO (El Niño and Southern Oscillation) or ENOA (El Niño-Oscillation Australe in French).
The El Niño phenomenon and its consequences have probably occurred for millennia, but the earliest historical evidence available dates back to 1567-1568.
At the present time, more marked El Niño phases were recorded in 1972-1973, 1982-1983 and 1997-1998. The definition of WMO is as follows: "a phenomenon characterized by a positive anomaly of the sea surface temperature (relative to the reference period 1971-2000) in the Niño 3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific, to the extent Where this anomaly is greater than or equal to 0.5 ° C according to an average calculated over three consecutive months ".
(WMO - News du Climat Mondial - January 2004 n ° 24). Source: our-planete.info, https://www.notre-planete.info/terre/climatologie_meteo/elnino.php
The El Niño phenomenon (the little boy in Spanish, and by extension the "Child Jesus") was named in the late 1800s by Peruvian sailors who had observed the appearance of a warm current during the period of Christmas.
This current corresponds to a warmer phase than usual called the Southern Oscillation El Niño or ENSO (El Niño and Southern Oscillation) or ENOA (El Niño-Oscillation Australe in French).
The El Niño phenomenon and its consequences have probably occurred for millennia, but the earliest historical evidence available dates back to 1567-1568.
At the present time, more marked El Niño phases were recorded in 1972-1973, 1982-1983 and 1997-1998. The definition of WMO is as follows: "a phenomenon characterized by a positive anomaly of the sea surface temperature (relative to the reference period 1971-2000) in the Niño 3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific, to the extent Where this anomaly is greater than or equal to 0.5 ° C according to an average calculated over three consecutive months ".
(WMO - News du Climat Mondial - January 2004 n ° 24). Source: our-planete.info, https://www.notre-planete.info/terre/climatologie_meteo/elnino.php