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El nino effect essay
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El Niño, A Non-technical Description
An El Niño is a temporary change in the climate of the Pacific ocean, in the region around the equator. You can see its effects in both the ocean and atmosphere, generally in Northern Hemisphere winter. Typically, the ocean surface warms up by a few degrees celsius. At the same time, the place where hefty thunderstorms occur on the equator moves eastward. Although those might seem like small differences, it nevertheless can have big effects on the world's climate.
o What causes it?
o What makes it stop growing?
o What effects does it have?
o How long does it last?
o How often do we get them?
o How well can we predict El Niño?
o A more technical explanation
What causes it?
Usually, the wind blows strongly from east to west along the equator in the Pacific. This actually piles up water (about half a meter's worth) in the western part of the Pacific. In the eastern part, deeper water (which is colder than the sun-warmed surface water) gets pulled up from below to replace the water pushed west. So, the normal situation is warm water (about 30 C) in the west, cold (about 22 C) in the east.
In an El Niño, the winds pushing that water around get weaker. As a result, some of the warm water piled up in the west slumps back down to the east, and not as much cold water gets pulled up from below. Both these tend to make the water in the eastern Pacific warmer, which is one of the hallmarks of an El Niño.
But it doesn't stop there. The warmer ocean then affects the winds--it makes the winds weaker! So if the winds get weaker, then the ocean gets warmer, which makes the winds get weaker, which makes the ocean get warmer ... this is called a positive feedback, and is what makes an El Niño grow.
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So what makes it stop growing?
The ocean is full of waves, but you might not know how many kinds of waves there are. There's one called a Rossby wave that is quite unlike the waves you see when you visit the beach. It's more like a distant cousin to a tidal wave. The difference is that a tidal wave goes very quickly, with all the water moving pretty much in the same direction. In a Rossby wave, the upper part of the ocean, say the top 100 meters or so, will be lesirely sliding one way, while the lower part, starting at 100 meters and going on down, will be slowly moving the other way.
Mark Cane, scientist at Columbia University, discusses numerous places around the world that suffer famine and fires due to the effects of El Nino, even mentioning an occurrence here in the United States of an extreme snow storm caused by this event1. According to NOAA, El Nino occurs every 2-7 years and is detected by satellites, buoys, and sea level analysis . If scientists are aware of when El Nino is occurring then they are also aware of what changes in weather it is causing and can therefore connect these disasters to the event. It is
wave to form, the surging tide must meet an obstacle. When the ocean meets the
El Nino is both an atmospheric and oceanic phenomenon affecting weather patterns all around the world. It is complemented by La Nina in a cycle that occurs approximately every 4 years, varying as much as every two years to every six years (Wang 1999, 3331). La Nina has almost the opposite effect, however differs in its strength and duration randomly, as does El Nino (Fedorov 2000, 1998). The cycle is often paraphrased as ENSO, standing for El Nino-Southern Oscillation (Flugel 1997, 3230). It is called this because the El Nino phenomenon is especially strong in the Southern Hemisphere, and has greater effects in areas of the pacific near the equator. Although ENSO is prominent in certain areas, it alters weather patterns all around the world. The El Nino pattern can be quite random with and approximate range of 2 to 6 years per cycle, and is a loaded gun believed to be triggered by western winds (Fedorov 2000, 1997). Many scientists are now looking to the past for answers, so the El Nino cycle can be predicted for the years to come. New discoveries have recently been made on El Nino's history, and possible future.
Ocean currents have been known to change direction or slow down. The heat that escapes from the oceans is in the form of water vapor, the most abundant greenhouse gas on Earth. Yet, water vapor also contributes to the formation of clouds and has a net cooling effect.
The Sun’s radiation heats the upper atmosphere, sending the energy toward the earth’s surface and finally mixes with the planet’s counter-rotational currents, creating jetstream flows. The winds flow over the ocean’s surface creating friction that spawns chops, pushing up the seas forming perfect bands of open ocean swell. Pushed on by gravitational forces, the swells speed away from the winds that they came from, moving across the deeps until they feel the drag of the shallows near the coast. As the swells rise up out of themselves, they peak, curling into the liquid dreams that we surfers ride (Kampton 4).
The warming of the air brings with it a change in weather patterns across the globe. This change in weather patterns will include an increase in weather extremes such as, storms and drought. The type of extreme depends on a specific region with drought expected to increase in the dry tropics and with the frequency of tropical storms and rainfall expected to increase in the wet tropics.
El Niño resulted in cooler and wetter weather in the Southern portion of the United States, warmer weather in Western Canada and Southern Alaska, drier weather in the Pacific Northwest, cooler weather in Northern Canada, and wetter weather in Southern California.
Surface current are found in the upper four hundred meters (400m) and makes up about ten percent (10%) of ocean (Briney, n.d.). Surface ocean currents are as a result of friction between the water and atmosphere interface. The wind exerts a force or stress to the ocean surface and causes the water to move. The winds that most affect the oceans’ currents are the Westerlies which produce belts of ocean currents that flow east in the mid-latitude and the Trade winds which generate currents that flow to the west in tropical latitudes. These winds are mainly a result of warm air from the tropics moving towards the poles. The direction of the current is not the same as the direction of the wind but it is deflected at a forty five degree angle. This deflection is resulted from the earth’s rotation on its axis called the Coriolis force/ effect. Coriolis force and constrains by continental land masses cause surface currents to develop into an alm...
The currents at the surface of the ocean are split in to two categories, tidal currents and surface currents. Tidal currents occur around land masses and are influenced mainly by the gravitational pull of our sun and moon. They change rapidly but predictably and contribute to surface currents. Surface currents occur over different areas of earth’s ocean. Two main factors affecting the surface currents are wind and the Coriolis Effect. The Coriolis Effect explains how the rotation of the earth seems to cause a deflection of anything moving above the earth’s surface. It is this effect that causes winds and water in the northern hemisphere to appear to deflect to the right and in the southern hemisphere to deflect to the left. One of the major surface currents is the Gulf Stream. Water in around the Caribbean is warmed by the sun and then carried north and east along the coast North America. These sun warmed waters release their stored energy into the westerly winds and Northern Europe benefits by having a much milder winter than t...
An El Nino happens in intervals of 3-7 years. The formation of this is related to the Pacific Southern Oscillation which is also the cycling of the Pacific Ocean circulation. The Pacific Southern Oscillation (the change of atmospheric pressures) happens when the easterly trade winds collapse, weaken, or even reverse. As this happens, the upwelling stops. The slight weakening of the winds cause a small change in sea surface temperatures, and the wind and pressure changes increase. The warm water of the western Pacific Ocean flow eastward and sea surface temperatures increase on the western coast of South America. When this occurs, the wet weather conditions (originally in the western Pacific) move east, and dry conditions (normally in the east) appear in the west.
They say that warmer waters will increase the power of tropical storms such as hurricanes and typhoons. Again the statistics given are made by a select group of notoriously bias paid scientists. Meaning the waters won’t get warmer. The waters get warmer every year because of the natural warming and cooling of the earth’s environment. This is the way that the earth works because of the shape and rotation of the earth around the sun. Added on to that is the fact that the storms that have been forming nowadays have been the same size as always just in new locations. This is just one e...
Climate change has been an extremely controversial topic in recent history and continues to create much debate today. Many questions concerning climate change’s origins and its potential affect on the globe are not fully understood and remain unanswered. What is climate change? Is climate change happening? Is it a natural cycle of the world or are there other catalysts involved such as human activity? What proof is there? What data correlations show climate change is accelerated by humans? How serious is climate change and how will it affect the future of our globe? What are we doing to address climate change? Should we really be concerned about climate change? Questions such as these have made climate change a very serious issue in today’s world and created the ideology of climatism. The issue of climate change has affected many different aspects of our lives and the world we live in. Policymaking, human activism, technologies, emission control, global warming, alternative energy sources and many other things have been greatly affected by the mania of climate change. This research report will present climate change in a light of common sense and rationality that will take a grounded discussion of the science behind climate change, global warming, human activity, and how the ideology of climatism has corrupted and driven the actions to combat climate change.
As defined by the Oxford dictionary, climate change is, “a change in global or regional climate patterns, in particular a change apparent from the mid to late 20th century onwards and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels.” (Oxford Dictionaries) Moreover, evidence of climate change can be found all over the world, and in many different forms, but is especially prevalent in certain regions. For instance, in Southeast Asia, specifically the nation of the Philippines, signs of climate change can be observed frequently, if not regularly. One major ...
earth?s atmosphere starts to warm, which leads to global warming. Global warming can lead to