How Spanish Infants Dominate the World's Weather

Yes, it's an Alpine Weather House which functions as a hygrometer embellished by folk art. The male and female figures ride on a balance bar, which is suspended by a piece of catgut or hair. The gut relaxes or shrinks based on the humidity in the surrounding air, relaxing when the air is wet and tensing when the air is dry. This action swings one figure or the other out of the house depending on the humidity. Some variants function as a barometer: low pressure indicates bad (rainy) weather, high pressure good (sunny) weather.

We had them in Wales when I was a boy, They were named Sion and Siân.

But they are useless for predicting weather in the Pacific.

El Niño and La Niña (infant boy and infant girl in Spanish) are terms used to describe the fluctuations in ocean temperatures across the eastern Pacific Ocean with often disastrous consequences for weather, fishing and agriculture.

The effects can spread world-wide given that world weather patterns are interlocked.

I'm currently in Indonesia, where the Indonesia throughflow of ocean water is an important output from the Pacific ocean, transporting considerable heat and more saline water into the Indian Ocean with effects as far away as the South Atlantic. 

Pacific weather patterns are reasonably well understood, but it's the anomalies that cause a problem.

And right now California is taking a lashing, ending years of drought.

El Niño

El Niño is a period when warm water pools near the coast of South America, while La Niña is a period when cooler waters congregate along this same coast. These two patterns can have widespread effects on global weather patterns, resulting in significant impacts on the fishing industry.

When El Niño is present, surface water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean rise significantly, resulting in a shift of rainfall across many parts of the globe. This can create unusually dry conditions in some regions and excessive rainfall in others, leading to floods or droughts. The warm waters can also affect ocean currents which can lead to changes in fish populations and migration patterns as well as altered fisheries productivity.

La Niña

On the other hand, La Niña brings cooler than normal sea surface temperatures across the eastern Pacific Ocean that can cause droughts due to its influence on global weather patterns by changing air circulation. 

Both El Niño and La Niña have significant impacts on global weather patterns and can cause severe weather events such as droughts, floods, and storms.

These changes can limit access to important resources like food sources for marine life and impact their migratory cycles, leading to a decrease in fishing productivity.

El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is used to describe the interactions between El Niño and La Niña, as well as their impact on global climate patterns. The term ENSO is widely used by scientists, fishermen, and other industries that rely on accurate predictions of weather and ocean conditions to plan ahead and mitigate potential losses. By understanding how these cycles work and their effects on global climate patterns, we are better able to prepare for the consequences of El Niño and La Niña events.

The graphic depicts the circulations when the ENSO is neutral.

El Niño feedbacks between the ocean and atmosphere are illustrated above.

During El Niño, the eastward expansion of the convection and rainfall will depend on how warm the absolute sea surface temperatures becomes in the eastern Pacific. This means that during weaker El Niño events, we may only see convection and rainfall increase around the International Date Line (180⁰ E/W).

But during stronger El Niño events, the increase in convection and rainfall can potentially extend from the Date Line all the way to coastal Ecuador/Peru in South America. Acknowledgement: Climate.gov schematic by Emily Eng and inspired by NOAA PMEL.

Wide impact

The impacts of El Niño and La Niña are not limited to the Pacific region. They can also affect weather patterns around the world, including in North America, South America, Africa, and Australia.

For example, El Niño can cause droughts in parts of Africa and Australia, while La Niña can cause heavy rain and flooding in these areas. 

In the United States, El Niño can lead to mild winters in the northern states and drought conditions in the southern states, while La Niña can cause cold and snowy winters in the northern states and wet conditions in the southern states.

As I write this in January 2023, the long years of drought in California have ended and the whole West Coast is being lashed by a series of cyclones which are riding along an 'atmospheric river' - an elongated jet stream stretching from southeast Asia around Thailand and reaching all the way to California -  bringing warm wet air from the west Pacific and dumping it rain on the coast and snow on the Sierras.

It is important to note that El Niño and La Niña are not the only factors that influence global weather patterns. Other climate patterns, such as the Arctic Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation, can also play a role. Additionally, human-caused climate change can exacerbate the impacts of El Niño and La Niña, making droughts, floods, and storms more severe.

Overall, El Niño and La Niña are important components of the ENSO system and have significant impacts on global weather patterns. Understanding the causes and impacts of these climate patterns can help us better predict and prepare for severe weather events. However, It is also important to take into account other influencing factors and the role of anthropogenic climate change (i.e. the fault of humanity) in exacerbating the impacts of these natural climate patterns.

And finally, an Atlantic brother for El Niño

El Niño does have a little brother who lives just across the South American continent in the Atlantic Ocean. His name is Atlantic Niño, and he has an uncanny resemblance to his big brother: Like El Niño, Atlantic Niño is characterized by warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial basin and weaker-than-average trade winds throughout the east-central equatorial Atlantic. - credit Dr. Sang-Ki Lee, a physical oceanographer at the NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, Florida, writing at NOAA

I used to be an oceanographer. Now I live on a boat and float around.

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