What El Niño Will do to Earth in 2024. The La Niña and El Niño Southern Oscillation.
Last updated: Jun 9, 2023
This video by Astrum explains the El Niño Southern Oscillation, specifically El Niño and La Niña, their impacts on the planet, and how they occur in the Pacific Ocean.
The video discusses the El Niño Southern Oscillation, a climate cycle that affects the entire planet and is becoming more common in recent decades.
El Niño and La Niña, which originate in the Pacific Ocean, have caused destructive consequences such as flooding, drought, famine, and mass die-offs of marine life.
The video explains the science behind the phenomenon, including the normal conditions in the Pacific Ocean and how El Niño disrupts them by weakening the trade winds and creating a zone of warm air and water.
The video also explores the history of El Niño and how it was first observed by fishermen in the 17th century.
- El Niño and La Niña are climate cycles that affect the planet.
- These cycles originate in the Pacific Ocean and impact nearly everywhere on Earth.
- El Niño can cause flooding, drought, famine, and mass die-offs of marine life.
- La Niña can cause droughts in some regions and flooding in others.
- El Niño and La Niña are phases of a global cyclical phenomenon called the El Niño Southern Oscillation.
- During El Niño, the trade winds weaken, causing warm water to build up near the coastal Americas and creating a zone of warm air and water further east in the Pacific.
- La Niña is the opposite of El Niño, with stronger trade winds that result in more upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water near the Americas.
- Studying climate cycles can help us prepare and foster human survival not just on this world but potentially on other worlds too.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is forecasting a 60% chance that El Niño sets in by autumn 2024.
What El Niño Will do to Earth in 2024. The La Niña and El Niño Southern Oscillation. - YouTube
Introduction
- Life on Earth is full of cyclical variations.
- El Niño and La Niña are climate cycles that affect the planet.
- Their impacts are felt nearly everywhere on Earth.
- Some of the destructive consequences include flooding, drought, famine, and mass die-offs of marine life.
- El Niño and La Niña originate in the Pacific Ocean.
History of El Niño
- During the 17th century, fishermen noticed periods of warmer water and poor fishing that would peak around Christmas time.
- They called it El Niño de la Navidad, which means the boy of the Nativity or the Christmas Child.
- Scientists began to connect a variety of seemingly disconnected regional events scattered across the planet in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
- By the mid-20th century, they found that these weren't regional occurrences but phases of a global cyclical phenomenon called the El Niño Southern Oscillation.
- The Enzo fluctuates with an average interval of five years, although the cycle can take anywhere between two and seven years.
Normal Conditions in the Pacific Ocean
- Winds blow along the Equator from east to west.
- This is a product of the Coriolis effect caused by the Earth's rotation.
- Air circulates off the poles but bends as it approaches the equator in a circumferential band that extends 30 degrees north and south of the Equator.
- This channel of westward moving air is called the trade winds.
- The trade winds blow westerly across the Pacific Ocean, dragging warm water from Coastal South America toward Asia.
What El Niño Will do to Earth in 2024. The La Niña and El Niño Southern Oscillation. - YouTube
El Niño and La Niña
- During El Niño, the trade winds weaken as they slow down, warm water that would be flowing toward Asia builds up instead near the coastal Americas resulting in less upwelling cold water.
- This in turn creates a zone of warm air and water further east in the Pacific with less upwelling.
- The fish that feed on phytoplankton and everything that feeds off them are affected.
- La Niña is the opposite of El Niño, where the trade winds are stronger than normal, and upwelling is more intense.
- La Niña can cause droughts in some regions and flooding in others.
El Niño's Impact on the Americas
- Phytoplankton migrate or die.
- Pacific jet stream moves south, causing northern US and Canada to become warmer and drier.
- Gulf Coast and parts of coastal South America become wetter.
- Peru and Ecuador receive heavy rain and flooding during severe El Niño years.
- Devastating floods occurred in Peru during the severe El Niño of 1997-1998.
El Niño's Global Effects
- Increased rainfall in South America coincides with drought in South Asia and Australia.
- Severe famines have been recorded in India during El Niño years.
- A delay in Australia's monsoon season can lead to massively destructive bushfires.
- Australia's bushfires are some of the most destructive on Earth.
- The average surface temperature during El Niño rises 0.1 degrees Celsius.
La Niña's Impact on the World
- La Niña is the opposite of El Niño, with stronger trade winds.
- Trade winds blow more warm water from Coastal South America toward Asia, resulting in more upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water near the Americas.
- Cold water species like salmon will venture into typically warmer waters during La Niña.
- Influx of warm equatorial water produces wet conditions in Asia, causing a spike in tropical cyclones.
- Jet stream is pushed further north in North America, causing drought in the southwestern US and rains in the Pacific Northwest.
La Niña's Impact on Hurricane Season
- The Atlantic often experiences a much more severe hurricane season during La Niña.
- The Pacific Basin actually sees fewer hurricanes during La Niña.
- Regional effects of La Niña can be drastically different.
El Niño and La Niña Impacts
- El Niño has the opposite effect as La Niña.
- During El Niño, Pacific Coastal South America won't see the warm Christmas time waters that once prompted fishermen to dub it El Niño de la Navidad.
- During La Niña, the weather in Peru and Chile turns colder and drier, sometimes producing severe periods of drought.
- Brazil's North becomes wetter during the months from December to February, and the lowlands of Bolivia can receive catastrophic flooding.
- In Africa, the conditions in La Niña years are basically the reverse of what they are during El Niño. East Africa tends to experience drier than average conditions, whereas the South tends to be wetter than average.
Current ENSO Cycle
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has declared an end to a lengthy one and a half year La Niña.
- Currently, the NOAA is forecasting a 60% chance that El Niño sets in by autumn.
- India is already warning citizens of potential drought conditions.
- Since we started tracking in the 1950s, there has never been more than a four-year period without an El Niño event.
- If there isn't one in 2023, it would mark the first five-year gap without one.
Insight into Earth's Complex Climate Systems
- Studying climate cycles can help us prepare and foster human survival not just on this world but potentially on other worlds too.
- The enso is an excellent example of how studying climate cycles can help us prepare and foster human survival.
- Understanding the interconnectivity of our own planet's climate will be crucial if we ever want to settle on other planets or even terraform.
- Our success will likely depend on our ability to understand the various inputs and feedback loops that intricately interlink climate systems and biospheres.
Brilliant.org
- Brilliant.org is an online learning platform with thousands of lessons and more are added monthly.
- Physics of the everyday covered the home infrastructure energy crime and more.
- If you're interested in delving into the science behind this video or even brushing up on your stem subjects, why not click on my link in the description below and head over to brilliant for a 30-day free trial.
- The first 200 will also get 20% off their annual subscription.
- Thanks for watching and a big thanks to my patrons and members.
Watch the video on YouTube:
What El Niño Will do to Earth in 2024. The La Niña and El Niño Southern Oscillation. - YouTube
