Want to understand how interconnected our planet is—how patterns and events in one place can affect life half a world away? Study El Niño. El Niño and La Niña are the warm and cool phases of a natural climate pattern across the tropical Pacific known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or “ENSO” for short.

Understanding the Context

The pattern shifts back and forth irregularly every two to seven years, bringing predictable changes in ocean temperature and disrupting the normal wind and rainfall patterns across the tropics. These changes in the ... El Niño is a naturally occurring ocean-atmosphere climate pattern associated with warming of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, which can significantly influence weather patterns, ocean conditions, and marine fisheries worldwide. El Niño occurs on average every two to seven years and episo El Niño has officially begun, and it is forecast to intensify into a very strong or “Super” El Niño with major shifts in global weather patterns.

Key Insights

El Niño is officially here, and it could get historically ... - CNN By influencing global temperatures and precipitation, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) significantly impacts Earth’s ecosystems and human societies. El Niño and La Niña are opposite extremes of the ENSO, which refers to cyclical environmental conditions that occur across the Equatorial Pacific Ocean. These changes are due to natural interactions between the ocean and atmosphere ... ABC News La Niña articles Washington Post El Niño articles New York Times El Niño articles National Geographic El Niño/La Niña articles NOVA / PBS USA Today El Niño resources Yahoo El Niño / La Niña news stories Bing Realtime graphics credits, in order of appearance Longitude-time plot of UWND, SST, Z20 Anamolies from the NOAA TAO ...

Final Thoughts