Hurricane activity falters as the storms fail to form in the Atlantic due to changes in the wind, sparing the United States. you're changing what kind of weather we would expect to see," DiLiberto said.ĭuring an El Nino, the southern United States experiences cooler and wetter weather, while parts of the U.S. "If you're changing where the storm highway goes. This shift in storm activity affects the current of fast-flowing air that moves weather around the world - called the subtropical jet stream - pushing its path southward and straightening it out into a flatter stream that delivers similar weather along the same latitudes. "That's the first atmospheric domino to fall." HOW DOES EL NINO AFFECT THE WORLD'S WEATHER? "When El Nino moves that warm water, it moves where thunderstorms happen," said NOAA meteorologist Tom DiLiberto. This build-up of warm water in the eastern Pacific also transfers heat high into the atmosphere through convection, generating thunderstorms.Ī farmer removes dried plants from his parched paddy field on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, September 8, 2015.
In too-warm waters corals will expel living algae, causing them to calcify and turn white.
And nearly a third of the corals on Australia's Great Barrier Reef died. It forms when the trade winds blowing east-to-west along the equatorial Pacific slow down or reverse as air pressure changes, although scientists are not entirely sure what kicks off the cycle.īecause the trade winds affect the sun-warmed surface waters, a weakening causes these warm western Pacific waters to slosh back into the colder central and eastern Pacific basins.ĭuring the 2015-16 El Nino - the strongest such event on record - anchovy stocks off the coast of Peru crashed amid this warm water incursion. Here is how El Nino will unfold and some of the weather we might expect: WHAT CAUSES AN EL NINO?Įl Nino is a natural climate pattern borne out of unusually warm waters in the eastern Pacific. Peru has set aside $1.06 billion to deal with El Nino's impacts and climate change, while the Philippines - at risk from cyclones - has formed a special government team to handle the predicted fallout. Governments in vulnerable countries are taking note. This year's El Nino could lead to global economic losses of $3 trillion, according to a study published last month in the journal Science, shrinking GDP as extreme weather decimates agricultural production, manufacturing, and helps spread disease. Two diagrams showing climate patterns in the Pacific Ocean for neutral and el nino conditions. Graphics to help explain on how El Nino works.
"We're in unprecedented territory," said Michelle L'Heureux, a meteorologist with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. But even before this El Nino began, in May, the average global sea surface temperature was about 0.1C (0.2F) higher than any other on record. An El Nino means that waters in the Eastern Pacific are warmer than usual. Meteorologists expect that this El Nino, coupled with excess warming from climate change, will see the world grapple with record-high temperatures.Įxperts are also concerned about what is going on in the ocean.
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The last time a strong El Nino was in full swing, in 2016, the world saw its hottest year on record. Scientists say this year looks particularly worrying. The past three years have been dominated by the cooler La Nina pattern. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared that an El Nino is now underway. LONDON, June 8(Reuters) - Countries are racing to prepare for extreme weather later this year as the world tips into an El Nino - a natural climate phenomenon that fuels tropical cyclones in the Pacific and boosts rainfall and flood risk in parts of the Americas and elsewhere.
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