Phani Siddha
@ Super Sixty IAS Academy
Hyd
El Niño-Southern Oscillation
The 1997 El Niño observed by TOPEX/Poseidon. The white areas off the tropical coasts of South and North America indicate the pool of warm water.
El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a quasiperiodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean with on average five year intervals.
It is characterized by variations in the temperature of the surface of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean—warming or cooling known as El Niño and La Niña respectively—and air surface pressure in the tropical western Pacific—the Southern Oscillation.
The two variations are coupled: the warm oceanic phase, El Niño, accompanies high air surface pressure in the western Pacific, while the cold phase, La Niña, accompanies low air surface pressure in the western Pacific.
Mechanisms that cause the oscillation remain under study.
ENSO causes extreme weather (such as floods and droughts) in many regions of the world. Developing countries dependent upon agriculture and fishing, particularly those bordering the Pacific Ocean, are the most affected.
In popular usage, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is often called just "El Niño".
El Niño is Spanish for "the boy" and refers to the Christ child, because periodic warming in the Pacific near South America is usually noticed around Christmas. The expression of ENSO is potentially subject to dramatic changes as a result of global warming, and is a target for research in this regard..
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.