CHAPTER 11: Niño and La Niña: A Weather Phenomenon

Learning Outcomes:

1. Discuss the difference between El Niño and La Niña

2. Identify the causes of El Niño and La Niña.
3. Analyze the impacts of El Niño and La Niña to the people and environment,

El Niño

El Niño is a weather phenomenon characterized by abnormally high surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific
Sea, and weaker trade winds, which have been known to cause a global ripple effect of turbulent and unusual
weather. The effect is caused in large part by the weakening of the trade winds, which normally push the
warmer surface water of the Pacific westward. As these winds grow weaker, they allow warm surface water to
change course and ebb eastward. As the sea and sky encourage different behavior in one another, jet streams
change course, causing storm systems to show up in locations they normally don't. This weather condition can
often cause fishing populations to die off, as they are unable to cope with drastic changes in sea temperature. It
also tends to make hurricane season around Central and North America less fierce. In other words, EI Niño is a
powerful climate change that warms the temperature of the water near the equator.

El Niño is Spanish, and literally means "the boy," but it’s better understood in its colloquial use in South
America, where it often refers to the baby Jesus. South American fisherman came up with this name because the
strange weather patterns they witnessed tend to occur around Christmas. It was also fitting that researchers gave
weather patterns opposite to El Niño the name La Niña.

El Niño can cause wild weather on the west coast. For example: Winds over the Pacific Ocean can become
violent and form hurricanes, Rainstorms and unusually high waters can cause flooding and huge waves that
pound into the seaside cliffs.

El Niño Impact

El Niño can also cause:

 Droughts in Southeast Asia and Australia

 Wildfires in Australia and Malaysia
 Fishing shortages and crop failures
 Mudslides

11.2 La Niña

La Niña is an extreme phase of a climate cycle that occurs naturally. The climate cycle involved is a coupled sea
-atmospheric Occurrence resulting from the interaction between the atmosphere and the surface of the sea.
Known as the Southern oscillation, this climate cycle includes EI Niño on one extreme and La Niña on the
other. La Niña is the cold phase of the cycle. A La Niña pattern exists when unusually cool sea-surface
temperatures occur in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Sea around the equator in the area between the
International Date Line and the coast of South America. In other words, La. Niña occurs when the Ocean waters
are cooler than normal.
Taken together, La Niña and El Niño generally are viewed by scientists as among the most powerful of weather
phenomena on the planet, because they can affect the climate over more than half the Barth. On average, this
cycle of cold surface sea temperatures occurs every three to five years and, typically, lasts about nine to 12
months, Cold episodes are important because they disrupt the usual patterns of atmospheric circulation and
tropical precipitation. The effect of the disruption of these patterns is to enhance the normal climate that prevails
in affected regions of the earth.

During a La Niña, for example, an area such as the Pacific Northwest in the United States, where there usually
is a wet winter, would have a winter that is wetter than normal. On the other hand, the more arid climates of the
southwestern US. would be drier than normal, and the rest of the country would tend to experience unusually
warm weather during a La Niña cycle. Southeast Asia and India probably would have abnormally heavy
monsoonal rains, and eastern Australia could be wetter than usual. This Weather effect extends as far north as
western Canada, where it causes colder winters, and o lar east as southeastern Africa, where the winter weather
tends to become cooler and wetter.

La Niña also affects the intensity and position of the jet streams; this, in tun, affects both the track and intensity
of storms. During this cold cycle of sea temperatures, the chances of hurricane activity affecting the Caribbean
and the U.S. increase, as does the likelihood that the Storms will be more intense. In addition, a strong jet
stream is a necessary ingredient for severe weather such as tornadoes. A change in the position of the jet streams
affects which regions are most likely to experience tornadoes in the U.S.

Impact of La Niña

 La Niña weather patterns are almost the opposite of EI Niño,

 La Niña brings wetter weather to areas that are usually very dry during El Niño
 The effects of La Niña are usually less extreme