El Nino and La Nina -Infant Jesus and Little Girl Phenomenon

What is ‘El Niño’ ? -It  is a climatic phenomenon that increases the temperature of the surface of the Pacific Ocean near the equatorial region. This phenomenon occurs in three years up to seven years long intervals. The full name is ‘El Nino Southern Oscillation’ (ENSO).

During the El Nino season, around 1/5th of the earth’s surface area (around the size of European continent), surface of the Pacific Ocean will start becoming warmer considerably. Trade winds that blow from east to west in the Pacific Ocean will either stop or become weak. The winds that blow in the opposite direction will become strong.

Since the surface of the water has become warm, subjective to the push of the winds, a part of the heat will move towards the shores of Peru through water & air. Hence the normally cool coastline of Peru will become hot. Fishes will disappear from the coastal seas. Therefore the brunt of El Nino are first borne by the fishermen of Peru.

This periodic warming phenomenon appears during the Christmas season. Therefore the fishermen of Peru gave the name of ‘El Nino’ which means ‘Infant Jesus’ or ‘small boy’ in Spanish; in the 19th century. Geologists have obtained proofs from the shores of Peru that El Nino phenomenon has occurred around 13000 years back.

Even though it appears in the Pacific Ocean, El Niño has the capacity to change the global climate. This will create worldwide destruction of nature. Those countries that receive rainfall normally will come under the grips of severe drought. Regions that have hot climate will be destined to come under heavy rainfall. Those regions lying west of Pacific Ocean including Philippines & Indonesia will experience more typhoons.

El Nino disturbs the balance of Indian Monsoon. During severe droughts in India that occurred in the last 132 years, disturbing reports regarding the strengthening of El Nino during that period was published on September 8th 2006 in the ‘Science’ magazine. Studies were conducted by a team of people under Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology

The strongest of the El Nino’s occurred in the last century. In the 20th century El Nino occurred 23 times. The most destructive El Nino, in its history, happened during the 1997-1998 period. This El Nino resulted in the death of 2100 people worldwide & a loss of 330 million dollars.

Whats is La Nina(Small girl) ‘Phenomenon

There is an antagonistic phenomenon to El Nino; ‘La Nina’. It means ‘small girl’ in Spanish. This name was given in 1985. When El Nino phenomenon comes to an end, sometimes La Nina will occur. In 20thcentury when El Nino appeared 23 times, 15 times La Nina occurred.

During the times when El Nino occurred there will be heavy rains & related problems while during La Nina season there will be severe draught. Otherwise it will be straight opposite. But, one thing is true. In recent times the pattern & strength of El Nino has increased. The effect of global warming also increased in the last century. Some scientists believe that this is not a coincidence.

The increase of the level of green house gases in the atmosphere is the reason for increasing global warming.When the earth’s atmosphere becomes hot due to global warming, the earth will try to readjust on its own. This readjustment is what appears in the form of El Nino according to certain people.

If that is true, then by solving the problem of global warming only we can reduce the effect of El Nino.