How does El Nino and La Nina affect South America?
The effects of a strong El Nino include a wetter and cooler than normal winter season in the southern United States, though the Pacific Northwest states tend to be warmer. During the summer, La Nina causes the western coast of South America and southeast Asia to be cooler.
How do you explain El Nino?
El Nino is a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean. El Niño is a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
How do El Nino or La Niña occur and what is the global impact of El Nino?
El Niño and La Niña are climate patterns in the Pacific Ocean that can affect weather worldwide. Warmer or colder than average ocean temperatures in one part of the world can influence weather around the globe. El Niño and La Niña can both have global impacts on weather, wildfires, ecosystems, and economies.
What happens in South America during El Niño?
During an El Niño event, the surface of the tropical Pacific Ocean gets warmer than usual, particularly at the equator and along the coasts of South and Central America. Warm oceans lead to low pressure systems in the atmosphere above, which in turn leads to a lot of rain for the western coasts of the Americas.
What does El Niño do to South America?
El Niño is a weather pattern that occurs in the Pacific Ocean. During this time, unusual winds cause warm surface water from the equator to move east, toward Central and South America. El Niño can cause more rain than usual in South and Central America and in the United States.
What is the main difference between El Niño and La Niña?
El Niño events are associated with a warming of the central and eastern tropical Pacific, while La Niña events are the reverse, with a sustained cooling of these same areas. These changes in the Pacific Ocean and its overlying atmosphere occur in a cycle known as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
What is the difference between La Nino and El Niño?
El Niño refers to the above-average sea-surface temperatures that periodically develop across the east-central equatorial Pacific. It represents the warm phase of the ENSO cycle. La Niña refers to the periodic cooling of sea-surface temperatures across the east-central equatorial Pacific.
What is the difference between El Nino and La Nina?
What is the La Niña phenomenon?
La Niña is a weather pattern that occurs in the Pacific Ocean. In this pattern, strong winds blow warm water at the ocean’s surface from South America to Indonesia. As the warm water moves west, cold water from the deep rises to the surface near the coast of South America.
How does La Niña and El Niño occur?
The development of El Niño events is linked to the trade winds. El Niño occurs when the trade winds are weaker than normal, and La Niña occurs when they are stronger than normal. Since 1997, the Pacific has been in a generally cool phase, during which time strong El Niño events have not been able to form.
What are El Niño and La Niña?
El Niño and La Niña are the warm and cool phases of a recurring climate pattern across the tropical Pacific—the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or “ENSO” for short. The pattern can shift back and forth irregularly every two to seven years, and each phase triggers predictable disruptions of temperature, precipitation, and winds.
What is an example of an El Niño event?
For example, during the 1997–98 El Niño event – which many consider the El Niño of the century – surface temperatures were around 3.5 °C warmer than normal in the eastern tropical Pacific, but temperatures at 150 m below the surface were up to 8 °C above average.
Is El Niño a specific area at a specific time?
No, El Niño isn’t a storm that will hit a specific area at a specific time. Instead, the warmer tropical Pacific waters cause changes to the global atmospheric circulation, resulting in a wide range of changes to global weather.
Where does moist air rise during El Niño and La Nina?
The primary location of moist, rising air (over the basin’s warmest water) is centered over the central or eastern Pacific during El Niño and over Indonesia and the western Pacific during La Niña.