Most people, even those who do not know Spanish, are familiar with the terms El Nino and La Nina. The first, of course, means a boy or a boy. Later it means a girl. Over the past twenty years or so, both have become frequent weather phenomena. Most people are familiar with El Nino, but not as many have heard of La Nina. What are the similarities and differences between the two?
Besides the Spanish name, what do they have in common? Both El Nino and La Nina are weather events that occur at equal intervals of three to seven years. Both weather patterns originate in the equatorial Pacific. Both of these events are associated with variations in ocean water temperature. Both El Nino and La Nina are becoming increasingly apparent due to environmental changes, including ocean desalination and global warming. Although El Nino are more frequent, there are La Nina crops every few years. With global warming, there will be more El Nino versus its counterpart, La Nina. This will be said below. No one knows why someone always says this, but this also happens in the storm. A strong El Nino indicates that La Nina will soon follow. (www.elnino.noaa.gov.) (www.elnina.noaa.gov)
Now we understand how they are similar, how are they different? El Nino occurs when the ocean surface temperature rises above 5 degrees Celsius above normal. The most frequent El Nino began in September 2006 and ran until the first months of 2007. As previously mentioned, global warming has increased the El Nino event, which warms the seas due to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. These weather events usually mean the growth of hurricanes. Some suspect that this year’s weather was so mild that the most recent El Nino was minor compared to previous ones. Probably the worst El Nino in recent memory occurred in the fall and winter of 1997. The winters that year were particularly harsh. and the summer was imminent and the stormy seasons were intense.
In contrast, La Nina occurs when the surface temperature falls below 5 degrees Celsius of normal water temperature. We are now in a mild La Nina that started in June of 2007. At this time the waters in the Central and Eastern Pacific are cooler than normal. While this tends to happen more often, we are seeing fewer and fewer La Nina climates. La Ninas are known to create worse drought conditions, and this explains why much of the southern United States suffers from worst droughts. in his history. (www.physicalgeography.net/elninolanina)
Weather has always amazed me that it is something we can study, but it is mostly out of our control. As time goes on, perhaps we can learn how to better control our environment. But our first responsibility is to learn to make sure that Mother Earth events like El Nino and La Nina are as infrequent as they are in practice.
