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Benjamin McKeown

Climate Prediction Center - Cold Episodes - 0 views

  • At times ocean surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific are colder than normal. These cold episodes, sometimes referred to as La Niña episodes, are characterized by lower than normal pressure over Indonesia and northern Australia and higher than normal pressure over the eastern tropical Pacific. This pressure pattern is associated with enhanced near-surface equatorial easterly winds over the central and eastern equatorial Pacific.
  • bnormally cold waters in the equatorial central give rise to suppressed cloudiness and rainfall in that region, especially during the Northern Hemispherel winter and spring seasons. At the same time, rainfall is enhanced over Indonesia, Malaysia and northern Australia. Thus, the normal Walker Circulation during winter and spring, which features rising air, cloudiness and rainfall over the region of Indonesia and the western Pacific, and sinking air over the equatorial eastern Pacific, becomes stronger than normal.
  • Significant departures from normal are shown in the accompanying figures for the Northern Hemisphere winter and summer seasons.
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  • During cold episodes, the colder than normal ocean temperatures in the equatorial central Pacific act to inhibit the formation of rain-producing clouds over that region. Wetter than normal conditions develop farther west over northern Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia, during the northern winter, and over the Philippines during the northern summer. Wetter than normal conditions are also observed over southeastern Africa and northern Brazil, during the northern winter season. During the northern summer season, the Indian monsoon rainfall tends to be greater than normal, especially in northwest India. Drier than normal conditions during cold episodes are observed along the west coast of tropical South America, and at subtropical latitudes of North America (Gulf Coast) and South America (southern Brazil to central Argentina) during their respective winter seasons.
Benjamin McKeown

El Nino and extreme weather will be a theme of 2016 - 0 views

  • In fact, it’s probably the strongest that’s ever been measured. I
  • In fact, due to an atmospheric lag, extreme weather will likely keep getting worse for several more months. Though El Niño is typically the most powerful player among the world’s constantly feuding meteorological morphologies, it takes months for its burst of heat to filter around the globe from the tropical Pacific. Ocean temperatures in the El Niño regions of the Pacific usually peak in November or December, but globally-averaged temperatures don’t typically peak until between February and July of the following year.
  • Though El Niño is the proximate cause of many of this year’s weather records, its effects are an upward wiggle on top of the slow-rolling steamroller of climate change.
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  • Nearly 100 million people worldwide are facing food and water shortages this year due to drought and floods linked to El Niño.
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  • El Niño is also helping to spread vector-borne diseases, like Zika, malaria, and dengue fever. And all the crazy weather is creating an uncertain economic environment, too.
  • been a few Florida tornado outbreaks th
  • This is what weather chaos looks like. Thankfully, climate scientists are using this rare event to learn as much as they can about what the super El Niño might tell them about future events and climate change—like in coral reefs, which are especially threatened this year.
  • his El Niño will transition to a La Niña—featuring an unusually cool patch of tropical Pacific waters—by late this year.
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