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I am El Nino, all other tropical storms must bow before me!!
We all remember that right?
But other than Chris Farley, what is an el nino?
What's up DNewsers, it's Trace and this is DNews.
Thanks for tuning in.
If you can remember 1997 and 98, you probably remember the media storm surrounding that
year's El Nino.
People talked about it all the time, it was HUGE weather news, mainly because it was the
strongest El Nino in decades and there were a bunch in a row, which is rare.
You might’ve heard that 2014 is also an El Nino year, though forecasters predict it’ll
be much weaker than the one in 97-98.
The name El Nino traces back to the 1600s, when fisherman off the coast of Peru who noticed
warmer water usually appeared around Christmas-time.
They named it El Nino which means Little Boy, or Christ Child in Spanish.
How that water GOT there, however, is crazy.
In a normal year, the trade winds blow from east to west blowing the warm surface water
with it.
These winds create a kind-of hill of warm water on Asian coasts.
That leaves the deeper, colder water to backfill on the west coast of the Americas.
Basically, the temperatures of the ocean and the atmosphere around the east-central equatorial
Pacific have a HUGE impact on weather patterns around the world.
But sometimes these temperatures fluctuate, in a cycle known as the El Nino Southern Oscillation,
or ENSO.
In an El Nino year, for some reason, the trade winds are super weak, so they're not pulling
warm water to Asia.
Because of the warmer Americas, the trade winds weaken even MORE causing the ocean to
warm even MORE!
That oscillation continues causing wetter winters over the southeastern United States,
and dryer weather in Indonesia and Australia; is also increases hurricanes in the eastern
Pacific while lessening those in the Caribbean.
La Ninas, are the opposite of El Nino, the trade winds get really strong so we get COLDER
waters around the equatorial Pacific.
Which means warmer winters in the Southeast US with fewer hurricanes in the Pacific and
more in the Caribbean, plus wetter summers in Australia with more cyclones.
Guys, this shiz is a lot.
It's a house of cards.
When one thing changes, the whole system goes nutso.
These ENSO events cause lots of problems with flooding, cyclones, food production, snowfall,
and so on.
I mean, the water raining down on the Americas has to come from somewhere.
Thus, Australia will likely see a terrible drought this year, and India will probably
have a lessened monsoon season; meaning less food production for both countries.
Not good, and these ENSO systems can go on for more than a year!
The link between global warming and increased ENSO events is still being checked out, but
a study in Nature Climate Change says that global climate change is going to cause MORE
of these events, and they'll be stronger.
I've seen questions on why we haven't invented weather controlling technology yet…
this is why!
We JUST started to understand how this all works 30 years ago.
The events happen as part of the natural interaction of water and wind in the Pacific ocean, and
thus can be monitored and predicted so governments can prepare.
NOAA used to maintain 70 buoys strategically placed across the oceans.
I say used to, because thanks to recent budgetary limitations they can't afford to maintain
them anymore.
Therefore, NOAA's network of oceanographic weather information is breaking down.
So…
there's that.
It might not be long until El Nino catches us by surprise, and that would be bad.
And before you ask, no we can't just invent something to control the weather.
To do that, we'd need to control ocean temperatures.
Due to the amount of water IN the ocean, we'd need to harness ALL the energy created in
the exploding of 400,000 20-megaton Hydrogen bombs.
IF we could do that, we could heat the Pacific by choice.
Seriously, don't get your hopes up.
So, what is an El Nino?
It's a cycle of warming and cooling that affects the weather of the whole planet.
It's nature, bro.
Just nature.
And when it comes to the extremes of nature, we wanna thank Subaru for making this episode
possible.
And especially the all-new 2015 Subaru Legacy.
Every sedan has its benefits, but only one combines them all.
It’s not just a sedan.
It’s a Subaru.
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