Question

Sometimes, the surface of the Pacific Ocean warms up, causing changes in the weather in some areas. This phenomenon is called El Niño. El Niño causes the amount of rainfall in some parts of the United States and South America to increase. It also causes droughts to occur in Southeast Asia and Australia. Droughts occur when an area receives less rain than it normally does over a certain period. Explain how Earth’s spheres may be affected by the droughts brought on by El Niño.

Answer 1

Answer:

2016 was an El Niño year. Scientists know that El Niño years tend to be warmer than normal, and that events can produce unusual and dramatic weather patterns around the world. But as the year progressed, alarm bells started going off for coral researchers across the Pacific. Temperature readings for oceans around the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and at islands from Fiji to Hawaii were sky-high—hotter, in many cases, than ever before recorded.

Corals, which aren’t great at dealing with either extreme heat or extreme cold, languished in the tepid waters. Stressed by the heat, they started to sicken and bleach, and in some cases die. By the end of the season, before scientists’ distressed eyes, vast swaths of the Pacific’s reefs were bleached bone white.

Oceans have been warming up quickly and steadily because of climate change. But in 2016, that warming was bolstered by a particularly strong El Niño event, which helped push the planet into the warmest 12-month stretch ever recorded.

The effects of El Niño events ripple across the planet, changing weather patterns from Dakar to Delhi to Boston and beyond. These powerful events happen naturally, but climate change may tweak their strength and ferocity in the future.

What is El Niño?

El Niño events are actually just one half—the warm, wet half—of a naturally occurring weather cycle called the “El Niño-Southern Oscillation,” or ENSO.

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During an El Niño event, the surface of the tropical Pacific Ocean gets warmer than usual, particularly at the equator and along the coasts of South and Central America. Warm oceans lead to low pressure systems in the atmosphere above, which in turn leads to a lot of rain for the western coasts of the Americas.

During some of the most famous El Niños of the past, the deluges have been so strong that entire villages have slid down mountainsides. In the 1972 to 1973 event, ocean temperatures skyrocketed off the Peruvian coast, nearly wiping out the anchoveta fishing industry, a critical one for the country. During the 1997 to 1998 El Niño, the country sustained over $3.5 billion in damage to buildings, agricultural lands, and other infrastructure. And in 2016, corals bleached across the Pacific, floods ravaged South America, and drought-fueled fires ripped across Australia.

The events can last for as long as a year, though the warming tends to be strongest during the Northern Hemisphere’s fall and winter months—October through February. In fact, that timing is the source of the name: “El Niño” means “male child” in Spanish, and also refers to the baby Jesus. Fishermen in South America, who have long known and described the phenomenon, called it “El Niño” because the some of the biggest effects spin up around Christmas—and the name stuck.

Explanation:

Answer 2

El Nino :-

El Nino is a natural phenomena that causes ocean temperatures to rise, particularly in some areas of the Pacific ocean.

• It is the nomenclature that is used to describe a recurring development along Peru's coast.
• This change is a temporary replacement for the cold current that runs along Peru's coast. The word "El Nino" is Spanish.
• El Nino literally means "the infant" in Spanish. This is because the current begins to flow around Christmas, and the name refers to the infant Jesus.

Affect of el Nino:-

Numerous health issues, such as disease outbreaks, malnutrition, heat stress, and respiratory illnesses are being brought on by the severe drought and associated food insecurity, flooding, precipitation, and temperature increases brought on by El Nino.

• Drought can shorten the growing season and make particular crops more susceptible to pest and disease infestation.
• Low crop yields might cause food shortages and price increases, which could end in malnutrition.
• A drought may also have an impact on the wellbeing of livestock kept for food.

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