Enso Cycle

Global climate change and variability, particularly at regional levels, are not completely understood. Therefore, there are many significant

The El-Niño Southern Oscillation is a complex sequence of natural climate variations that take place in the tropics of the Pacific Ocean, yet affect the climate of the entire globe. The climate phenomenon, known as ENSO, has three main phases that each differ markedly in their atmospheric and oceanic conditions. El Niño, also known as “the warm phase”, is the first cycle that begins when warm water in the eastern Pacific Ocean shifts to the west toward South America. During El Niño, the east-to-west trade winds halt and sometimes reverse directions, causing significant disturbances in the biological life of the Pacific Ocean. Conversely, La Niña is the complete opposite of El Niño. La Niña, also called “the cold phase” brings unusually strong east-to-west winds and colder temperatures along the equatorial Pacific. Both phases have consequences that affect the regular atmospheric conditions of the world; El Niño is linked to both droughts and floods, La Niña is linked to extreme tropical cyclones and monsoon rains. The climatic events also have relationships to forest fires, economic changes, famine, plagues and widespread crop failure. The study of ENSO is necessary in order to attempt to reveal patterns and key factors that can affect the intensity and severity of this phenomenon that occurs globally on average every two to seven years.

The Earth has been experiencing a considerable amount of climate change for the last several decades. Natural factors that contribute to the climate system consist of: solar output, volcanic activity and earth’s orbit around the sun. The two factors relevant on timescales of contemporary climate exist in volcanic activity and changes in solar radiation. The earth’s energy balance primarily influences the amount of incoming energy from volcanic eruptions, which have a relatively short-term effect on climate. Changes in solar output have contributed greatly to climate trends over the past century. The effect of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been at least ten times that of changes in the Sun’s output and the ocean covers more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface, receiving twice the amount of earth’s radiation. Although the sun is the engine that drives all the weather, oceans and atmosphere control the sun 's energy along certain

Samenow (2015) argues that climate change is best regarded as as a drought amplifier rather than the source of the drought itself. He provides instances showing links between drought and climate change. One is that the atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas, have risen about 25 percent since 1958. Heat-trapping gases, like carbon dioxide, act like a performance-enhancer when it comes to warm weather extreme, because they considerably intensify the probability for setting new records for hot

This next graphic displays the typical precipitation during the different El Niño years listed up at the top. This is shown through anomalies/averages. As you can see, California and the Gulf states have large amounts of precipitation up to 5 inches above normal, due to the storms that cut across those areas. The northern parts of the U.S. have close to nearly normal rainfall, while the Ohio Valley and areas of Washington are below the normal amount of precipitation shown by the negative anomalies.

I read an article published on CNN titled "Climate change could leave Californians with 'weather whiplash". In the article, it explains how California is known for its nice and soothing environment but with the enjoyable weather comes major shifts in its climate causing the weather patterns to be weak between drought and flood. The climate patterns have significant impacts on society and human life, causing extremely climate conditions only making mitigation and adaptation that much worse. According to UCLA Center for Climate Science, the dramatic swings from wet to dry will be twice as likely every 25 years, by 2100.

Kairos describes about current events that the article published that’s affecting the people right now. “During the evolution of a rain event, the collision– coalescence and the collisional breakup dominate the resultant of the flooding that’s caused California to go into state emergency” (D’Adderio, Porcu, and Tokay). What the authors said stated was that the rain patterns changed and California was one of the affected places that witness huge amounts of rainfalls than previous decades, which it’s an event that occurring this year. The authors states, “If there is a dry layer underneath the precipitation, evaporation also plays a significant role, especially at the small-drop end, in which affects current climate changes in parts of the Earth”

When you hear the words “climate change” what comes to mind? Probably weather and the changes. Many of us watch the news or use an app on our cellphones/electronic devices to keep an eye on the weather for the day, week, or even the month. But, there is actually a difference between weather and climate. Weather is actually “the changes we see and feel outside from day to day. It might rain one day and be sunny the next. Weather also changes from place to place” (Dunbar, 2014). Whereas “climate is the usual weather of a place. Climate can be different for different seasons. Different places can have different climates” (Dunbar, 2014). This paper will focus on the ins and outs of climate change, specifically focusing on what climate change

In a normal year, warm surface water is blown towards Australia. This creates heavy rain to parts of Australia. At the other side, South America experiences some drought. When there is an El Niño, those winds and surface ocean currents reverse the direction. The warm air is moved to South America. This makes the opposite happen, produces rain in South America and drought in

El nino and la nina are total opposites. They usually happen one time every three to seven years near christmas time or mid winter. El nino is a warm pool of water that heats the ocean and takes place in the pacific ocean and normally west of south america.el nino can spread and have effects on many places around the globe.el nino uses the earth's atmosphere to form. using the atmosphere

Over the years there has been a lot of controversy on if climate change is an issue that needs to be discussed and solved. There is a constant debate among scientist on if human actions are contributing the changing of earth’s climates. Climate change is defined as the change in average weather patterns for a specific region or Earth as a whole. This could include the change in an average temperature for a city or the amount a rainfall it receives (Dunbar, 2015). The main difference between weather and climate is the period of time specific patterns are recorded. Weather patterns are looked at over a much shorter period of time, meaning that these patterns are going to be more sporadic and change more frequently. Climate on the other had is recorded over a much longer period of time and usually show less drastic changes in patterns when compared to weather. Some people may argue that climate change is not an issue because Earth’s temperature is always changing do to natural effects. What people don’t realize is that human activity has effected the rate that earth’s temperature is changing, and just the smallest changes can lead to drastic consequences (Dunbar, 2015).

Our text states that a lot of research must be done before ESNO cycles can potentially be linked to anthropogenic global warming (Kitchen, 2016). Dr. McPhaden with the NOAA and NASA scientists have been researching this issue and working on climate models. They have determined that there is significant probability that extreme El Nino events will double in the 21st century. Rather than extreme ESNO events occurring about every 20 years, they will occur every ten years. These extreme climatic events have global impacts and could have significant socio-economic impacts including property damage, casualties and ecosystem damage (Cai et al, 2014), as well as result in vast population migrations which have huge impacts on public health

The El Niño story starts on the eastern Pacific Ocean. Peruvian fisherman have alway known the usually very cold and plentiful waters every so often become exceptionally warm, followed by the collapse of fish stocks. These unusual events return every 3-7 years and, and peak around December (Christmas), the fishermen named the phenomenon "El Niño" (Spanish for boy child). For decades, El Niño was considered to be a weather phenomenon only correlating with the countries of western South America. Scientists begin to realize, only early in the 20th century, that El Niño and monsoon conditions in Southeast Asia were actually related. El Nino has effected countries around the world. A refugee crisis was started in northeast Kenya as tens of thousands abandoned their camps in Somali, Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan. The United Nations predicted five million people in southern Africa would be in famine in November of 1997/98. Ecuador, and certain areas os southern America, were hit by flash floods in November. Families in southern California were warned to prepare for one of the worst winters in recent history. The drought from El Nino is even blamed for assisting in the increase of coffee prices, as well as affecting crops in Africa, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and parts of South America. But were the years of 1997/1989 of disaster simply a preview of more terrible El Nino 's to come? Should we expect to see more El Niños because of global warming? Will they be more intense storms

Scientists have discovered 'climate forcing’s ' influence variations in climate systems and based on the depth and period of such forcing’s the adjustments to climate may be in a shorter or longer earth cycle. Natural forcing’s like variations in earth 's orbit, solar variation, volcanic eruptions and motion of tectonic plates have influence on the Earth 's climate

The oceans play an important role in the climate system owing to the interannual and longer