El Niño

/el neen"yoh/; Sp. /el nee"nyaw/

a warm ocean current of variable intensity that develops after late December along the coast of Ecuador and Peru and sometimes causes catastrophic weather conditions.

[ < Sp: lit., the child, i.e., the Christ child, alluding to the appearance of the current near Christmas]

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In oceanography and climatology, the appearance, every few years, of unusually warm surface waters of the Pacific Ocean along the tropical western coast of South America.

It affects fishing, agriculture, and local weather from Ecuador to Chile and can cause global climatic anomalies in the equatorial Pacific, Asia, and North America. The name (Spanish for "the Christ Child") was originally used by 19th-century Peruvian fishermen to describe the annual flow of warm equatorial waters southward around Christmastime. The term is now used for an intense ocean warming that stretches from the western Pacific to South America. This "anomalous occurrence" is caused by an unusual weakening of the normally westward-blowing trade winds, which in turn allows warm surface waters to spread eastward. See also La Niña.

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▪ oceanic and climatic phenomenon

 (Spanish: “The Christ Child”), in oceanography and climatology, the anomalous appearance, every few years, of unusually warm ocean conditions along the tropical west coast of South America. This event is associated with adverse effects on fishing, agriculture, and local weather from Ecuador to Chile and with far-field climatic anomalies in the equatorial Pacific and occasionally in Asia and North America as well.

 The name El Niño was originally used during the 19th century by the fishermen of northern Peru in reference to the annual flow of warm equatorial waters southward around Christmas time. Peruvian scientists later noted that more intense changes occurred at intervals of several years and were associated with catastrophic seasonal flooding along the normally arid coast, while the thermal anomalies lasted for a year or more. The more unusual episodes gained world attention during the 20th century, and the original annual connotation of the name was replaced by that of the anomalous occurrence.

      The timing and intensity of El Niño events vary widely. The first recorded occurrence of unusual desert rainfall was in 1525, when the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro landed in northern Peru. Historians suggest that the desert rains and vegetation encountered by the Spaniards may have facilitated their conquest of the Inca empire. The intensity of El Niño episodes varies from weak thermal anomalies (2–3 °C [about 4–5 °F]) with only moderate local effects to very strong anomalies (8–10 °C [14–18 °F]) associated with worldwide climatic perturbations. El Niño events typically occur at three- to four-year intervals, with the strong events being less common. The intermittency varies widely, however, and the phenomenon is neither periodic nor predictable in the sense that ocean tides are.

      Beginning with the work of Sir Gilbert Walker in the 1930s, climatologists recognized a similar interannual change in the tropical atmosphere, which Walker termed the Southern Oscillation (SO). El Niño and the Southern Oscillation appear to be the oceanic and atmospheric components of a single large-scale, coupled interaction—the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During the warm phase of ENSO, the South Pacific trade-wind system undergoes a change of state, or “seesaw,” in which the westward-blowing trades weaken along the equator as the normally high pressure in the eastern South Pacific decreases and the low pressure over northern Australia and Indonesia rises. The pressure change and diminished trade winds cause warm surface water to move eastward along the equator from the western Pacific, while the warm surface layer in the east becomes thicker. Under normal conditions, the northward-blowing winds off South America cause nutrient-rich waters to upwell from below the shallow, warm surface layer. The nutrients (mainly phosphates and nitrates) provide a plentiful supply of food for photosynthesizing plankton, on which the fish feed. During El Niño, however, the thicker surface layer acts as a barrier to effective upwelling by the coastal winds. The unenriched surface waters are poor in nutrients and cannot support the normally productive coastal ecosystem. Fish populations are decimated as great numbers migrate to less-affected areas in search of food, resulting in temporarily reduced yields for the countries in the region. In 1972–73 this led not only to local economic setbacks but to repercussions in the world commodity markets as well.

      The warm ocean conditions in the equatorial Pacific induce large-scale anomalies in the atmosphere. Rainfall increases manyfold in Ecuador and northern Peru, causing coastal flooding and erosion and consequent hardships in transportation and agriculture. Additionally, strong El Niño events are associated with droughts in Indonesia, Australia, and northeastern South America and with altered patterns of tropical storms in the tropical belt. During the stronger El Niño episodes, the atmospheric “teleconnections” are extensive enough to cause unusually severe winter weather at the higher latitudes of North and South America.

      The most intense event of the 20th century began in mid-1982 and ended in mid-1983. Sea-surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific and much of the equatorial zone farther west were 5–10 °C (9–18 °F) above normal. Australia was hit by severe drought; typhoons occurred as far east as Tahiti; and central Chile suffered from record rainfall and flooding. Also, the west coast of North America was unusually stormy during the winter of 1982–83, and fish catches were dramatically altered from Mexico to Alaska.

David B. Enfield

 

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