El Niño And La Niña – What Are These Two Phenomena?
EL NIÑO – In this topic, we will now know about the two extreme weather phenomena called El Niño and La Niña.
According to the National Ocean Service, the two phenomena are two opposite phases of what is known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle.
ENSO is described as the fluctuations in temperature between the ocean and atmosphere in the east-central Equatorial Pacific, which is located about in the middle of the International Date Line and 120 degrees West.
Both usually last 9 to 12 months, but there are cases that it may last frequencies. They do not just bring impacts on ocean processes, but also on climate and weather globally.,
- El Niño
- The warm phase of ENSO. It means The Little Boy or Christ Child in Spanish.
- This was recognized by fisherman in the 1600s with the appearance of unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean.
- This refers to the ocean-atmosphere climate interaction in a huge scale that is linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central Equatorial Pacific.
- La Niña
- The cold phase of ENSO. It means The Little Girl in Spanish and is sometimes referred to as El Viejo, or simply “a cold event.”
- It is decribed as events of of below-average sea surface temperatures across the east-central Equatorial Pacific. Winter temperatures are warmer than normal in the Southeast and cooler than normal in the Northwest.
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