The Pacific Connection2 lesson(s)
Weather & Climate · Advanced
El Niño and La Niña
By admin · An advanced course on the ocean-atmosphere heartbeat of the planet: how the tropical Pacific breathes between warm El Niño and cool La Niña states, how that rhythm reorders weather across the globe, and how scientists forecast the oscillation that rules floods, droughts and seasons.
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About this course
Every two to seven years, the tropical Pacific Ocean performs a slow, planetary-scale breath, shifting between the warm anomaly called El Niño and the cool anomaly called La Niña, together the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. Though centered in one ocean, ENSO reaches everywhere: it weakens or strengthens monsoons, deepens or relives droughts, steers hurricane seasons, and warps temperatures on every continent. This classroom explains the physics of ENSO, the mechanics of both its phases, the chain of weather effects they trigger around the world, and the observing systems and models that now let forecasters predict its swings months in advance, one of the great triumphs of modern climate science.
Course outline
ENSO and the World2 lesson(s)