El Nino is a climatic pattern that occurs in the Pacific Ocean and can affect the weather of the entire world.
When normal conditions prevail in the Pacific Ocean, the trade winds blow west along the equator taking warm water towards Asia from South America. As a result, to replace that warm water, the cold water rises from depths of the ocean and this process is known as “Upwelling”. El Nino is a climatic pattern that along with La Nina break these normal conditions prevailing in the Pacific Ocean.
The El Nino may affect weather, wildfires, ecosystem and also economies. It normally lasts for about 9 months to a year, but sometimes, it may last for several years. It also tend to occur every 2 to 7 years on an average. But there is no certain pattern and it is not regular.
What happens during El Nino?
What happens during El Nino is that the trade winds weakens in the Pacific Ocean. As a result of this, warm water gets pushed east toward the west coast of the American continent.
Why El Nino is called as such?
The literal meaning of El Nino is Little Boy in Spanish. It was first observed by fishermen in 1600s when they notices unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean.
El Nino was also called El Nino de Navidad because it typically peaked around December.
El Nino has begun. This means that weather around the United States of America is about to get even hotter. El Nino is known to cause hotter weather all around the world.
For as many years as we are recording climatic and weather data, the hottest years on record of particularly those years that have had El Nino in effect.
An interesting and worrisome fact is that the last 8 years were the hottest to have ever been recorded. This happened despite the fact that La Nina was in effect since late 2020 and has just only ended. It is to be noted that La Nina has somewhat opposite effect to El Nino.
Effects of climate change and its relation with El Nino
El Nino seems to exacerbate the effects of climate change.
In the Northern Untied States of America and Canada, El Nino tends to bring drier and warmer weather. As we know, Canada just had an abnormally hot Spring and is as of now, facing widespread wildfires all over.
Whereas in the Southern United States of America, the climate change has been observed to make heavy rain storms that are often dangerous, more common. El Nino gives more power to such storms and make it more destructive. The danger of flash floods are higher and it destroys homes and even kills people.
But, these are not all. El Nino tends to weaken Atlantic hurricanes. During the El Nino years, there are generally fewer storms observed. This happens because the wind conditions are not conducive for the development of the hurricane. This might bring some sort of relief to the United States, but this is now not always the case.
Because of climate change and its effects on the environment, the water in the Atlantic Ocean is very warm when compared to normal conditions and warm water is conducive for the development and growth of hurricanes. As is expected from these data, this year forecast is not the one that we would expect. The conditions have changed due to climate change.