The Christ Child - An introduction
Where the trade winds blow - The causes for El Niño (1)
The ocean currents in the Pacific - The causes for El Niño (2)
Warmer here, rain there - What changes take place, and where?
Not quite regularly - How often do El Niño events take place?
The Christ Child
On the west coast of the South American continent, just south of the equator, lies Peru. The cool Humboldt ocean current (also called the Peru current) brings water rich in nutrients to the coast, providing valuable nourishment for the fish. But every year, about Christmas time, a warm current comes and leaves the coastal fishermen with empty nets. Although it leaves the table for Christmas rather bare, the fishermen called this phenomenon "El Niño", meaning Christ Child. While this current - Corriente del Niño - is generally limited to a small band along the Pacific coast of the Americas, there are years during which the warming is more widespread and more intense. During those years, a climate change called El Niño is observed by scientists. This Christ Child strikes not only the coast and the fishermen of Peru. It leads to changes in weather in the tropical and desert belt around the globe, and in some places to latitudes as high as mid-North America.
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In the chapter "What changes take place, and where?" we will take a look at the changes caused by El Niño. |
El Niño hits the world hard again and again, leading to crop failure and drought in some places and heavy precipitation in others. The Christ Child brings hunger and grief and can affect the economies of the afflicted countries badly. Without doubt, El Niño is a child of mother nature, not a man-made climate catastrophe. The investigation and prediction of El Niño events is a big challenge for climate scientists - as big as the prediction of earthquakes for seismologists. In both cases, reliable predictions and early identification of the first signals can prevent a lot of harm. Especially in the countries most affected by El Niño, which are generally not the wealthiest, the following questions are of special importance and shall therefore be asked here:
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What are the causes of El Niño? How often do El Niño events take place? How do scientists investigate this phenomenon? Can El Niño events be predicted? What damage does El Niño do and how can this be limited? |
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| ATLAS buoy in front of a research ship PIRATA-Project Fall 1997 (J. Servain) |
In the following pages we are going to undertake a trip into the Pacific between Indonesia and South America. We will see how the Trade Winds and the ocean currents work together. We are going to take a look over the shoulder of some scientists into the depth of the oceans, several hundred meters deep. We will see how El Niño affects economies and what can be achieved by reliable predictions.
Let's start the trip where the trade winds blow.
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