El Nio and La Nia

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El Niño and La Niña

• By Allan Williams, Melissa Peddler, and
  Amanda Vasiladis

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What is El Niño and La Niña?

• El Niño is an abnormality in the tropical Pacific
  ocean currents.
• The term El Niño refers to a warm, nutrient-poor,
  ocean current.
• The ocean-atmospheric conditions are changed so
  that the ocean temperature is higher than usual.
  This creates a chain reaction that we will
  explain shortly.
• La Niña is quite the opposite of El Niño.
  Instead of the ocean temperature heating up such
  as during an El Niño, the temperature becomes
  especially cool.
• Although, both El Niño and La Niña are
  disruptions in the ocean-atmospheric weather
  system.

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Where, when, and what time of year does El Niño
occur?

• El Niño usually appears around Christmas time and
  lasts for several months.
• El Niño occurs during our winters and La Niña
  during our summers.
• El Niño and La Niña occur every 3-7 years on
  average every 4 years, but can wait up to ten
  years to return.
• El Niño is most common to occur between the
  tropical and equatorial Pacific Ocean.

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What causes El Niño?

• When El Niño is in effect, the convection cell
  that normally forms around Indonesia and
  Australia moves east disrupting the weather
  system.
• Jim Kinter, the executive director of the Center
  for Ocean-Land Atmospheric Studies states the
  huge amounts of heat released by the
  thunderstorms in convection cells affects the
  circulation of the global atmosphere, so when
  those thunderstorms are shifted from their normal
  position, the global circulation is also
  changed.

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What causes El Niño Part II?

• The main cause of El Niño is the change in
  atmospheric pressure. As we have learned,
  differences in temperature and pressure move air
  and moisture throughout the sky.
• Therefore, with this change in pressure, the
  normal placements of air and moisture in the sky
  are moved eastward.
• To put it simply, El Niño is caused by the
  changed position of the pool of hot water and the
  convection cell it creates.

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What areas does El Niño affect? What are the
effects?

• El Niño affects the weather around the globe. It
  directly affects most Pacific countries in South
  America such as Peru and Ecuador.
• It is the cause of many brush fires in Australia.
• El Niño it self can not create any damage, but
  itsproducts can. Products of El Niño are
  increased and heavy rainfall across the southern
  tier of the United States and in Peru,
  destructive flooding, and drought in the West
  Pacific.
• El Niño also affects the economy of Peru since it
  disturbs the placement of nutrients which attract
  fish for the fisherman to catch.
• El Niño does affect our area by making our
  winters warmer and summers cooler
• Ex The El Niño of 1982-1983 killed nearly 2,000
  lives and destroyed hundreds of thousands of
  homes overall. Also, as a result of this event,
  there were more hurricances than usual that
  occurred near Hawaii and Tahiti.

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Recent Occurrences

• Listed here are the years in which El Niños have
  occurred 1951, 1953, 1957-1958, 1965, 1969,
  1972-1973, 1976, 1982-1983, 1986-1987, 1991-1992,
  1994, and 1997.
• It is suggested that the 1997 event could have
  surpassed (in destructiveness) the El Niño of
  1982-1983, making it the strongest El Niño of the
  century!

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Other Interesting Facts

• El Niño is Spanish for the boy or the Christ
  Child.
• It took its name from the time of year that it
  occurred around Christmas time, thus it was
  dubbed the Christ Child and later on the boy.
• La Niña is Spanish for the girl.
• La Niña is also referred to as El Viejo
  translated as the old man.
• The term El Niño was originally used by fisherman
  along the coast of Ecuador and Peru used in
  reference to a warm ocean current that made the
  fish less abundant at the time.
• The realization of the connection between El Niño
  and global weather patterns did not occur until
  the winter of 1972-1973!

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The End

• Thank you
• (Applause)