How Do El Niño And La Niña Work
How do El Niño and La Niña Work?
El Niño and La Niña together are known as the (ENSO) El Niño-Southern Oscillation. The two siblings can create many negative impacts on the world. El Niño is referred to as the warm phase while La Niña is the opposite as the cold phase. These cycle last up to 12 months and in some cases have been longer. Colder or warmer ocean water temperatures in one part of the world can have an impact on our planets weather.
El Niño and La Niña work like this, during normal conditions, trade winds, which blow from east to west, push warm surface water towards Asia, piling it up in the western pacific. In some years though, the trade winds weaken, the warm surface water moves eastward and reduces upwelling of cold water off the coast of South America. Climatologists call this El Niño. Its climate impacts show up mostly in the wintertime over North America. The warmer ocean fuels an intensification and southward shift of the jet stream. This brings disastrous flooding to the southern United States and warmer, drier conditions over parts of the Pacific Northwest, northern U.S, and Canada. But eventually those trade winds will pick up again and may become stronger than usual. When that occurs, they push the warm water back into the western pacific and restart the up swelling of cool water towards the surfaced in the eastern pacific. These strong trade winds are a signature of what is called La Niña, unusually cold conditions in the tropical pacific that …show more content…
The El Niño and La Nina can vary in power and destruction. They can impact the world in many ways and are still being studied till this day. Currently for us El Niño is still active, and it’s expected to continue through spring or early summer, but the impact on U.S. weather during this transition season is usually minor. According to “climategov” The NOAA issued a La Niña Watch: conditions are favorable for La Niña to emerge within 6
El Niño and La Niña together are known as the (ENSO) El Niño-Southern Oscillation. The two siblings can create many negative impacts on the world. El Niño is referred to as the warm phase while La Niña is the opposite as the cold phase. These cycle last up to 12 months and in some cases have been longer. Colder or warmer ocean water temperatures in one part of the world can have an impact on our planets weather.
El Niño and La Niña work like this, during normal conditions, trade winds, which blow from east to west, push warm surface water towards Asia, piling it up in the western pacific. In some years though, the trade winds weaken, the warm surface water moves eastward and reduces upwelling of cold water off the coast of South America. Climatologists call this El Niño. Its climate impacts show up mostly in the wintertime over North America. The warmer ocean fuels an intensification and southward shift of the jet stream. This brings disastrous flooding to the southern United States and warmer, drier conditions over parts of the Pacific Northwest, northern U.S, and Canada. But eventually those trade winds will pick up again and may become stronger than usual. When that occurs, they push the warm water back into the western pacific and restart the up swelling of cool water towards the surfaced in the eastern pacific. These strong trade winds are a signature of what is called La Niña, unusually cold conditions in the tropical pacific that …show more content…
The El Niño and La Nina can vary in power and destruction. They can impact the world in many ways and are still being studied till this day. Currently for us El Niño is still active, and it’s expected to continue through spring or early summer, but the impact on U.S. weather during this transition season is usually minor. According to “climategov” The NOAA issued a La Niña Watch: conditions are favorable for La Niña to emerge within 6