How does el nino affect ocean life and weather in various parts of the world?

Answer 1

El Nino could cause the food chain for the ocean animals to get disrupted by some of the sea animals not being able to handle the change of the temperature in the water. By them not being use to that climate they could die or possibly move away.

Answer 2

Because El Niño's warm pool feeds thunderstorms above, it creates increased rainfall across the east-central and eastern Pacific Ocean.

In South America, the effects of El Niño are direct and stronger than in North America. An El Niño is associated with warm and very wet summers (December-February) along the coasts of northern Peru and Ecuador, causing major flooding whenever the event is strong or extreme. The effects during the months of February, March and April may become critical. Southern Brazil and northern Argentina also experience wetter than normal conditions but mainly during the spring and early summer. Central Chile receives a mild winter with large rainfall, and the Peruvian-Bolivian Altiplano is sometimes exposed to unusual winter snowfall events. Drier and hotter weather occurs in parts of the Amazon River Basin, Colombia and Central America.

Direct effects of El Niño resulting in drier conditions occur in parts of southeast Asia, increasing forest fires, and northern Australia. Drier than normal conditions are also generally observed in Queensland, inland Victoria, inland New South Wales and eastern Tasmania during June-August.

West of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Ross, Bellingshausen, and Amundsen Sea sectors have more sea ice during El Niño. The latter two and the Weddell Sea also become warmer and have higher atmospheric pressure.

In North America, typically, winters are warmer than normal in the upper Midwest states and Canada, while central and southern California, northwest Mexico and the southeastern U.S., are wetter than normal. Summer is wetter in the intermountain regions of the U.S. The Pacific Northwest states, on the other hand, tend to be drier during an El Niño. During a La Niña, by contrast, the Midwestern U.S. tends to be drier than normal. El Niño is associated with decreased hurricane activity in the Atlantic, especially south of 25º N; this reduction is largely due to stronger wind shear over the tropics.

Finally, East Africa, including Kenya, Tanzania and the White Nile basin, experiences in the long rains from March to May wetter than normal conditions. There also are drier than normal conditions from December to February in south-central Africa, mainly in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana.

Western Hemisphere Warm Pool

Study of climate records has found that about half of the summers after an El Niño have unusual warming in the Western Hemisphere Warm Pool (WHWP). This affects weather in the area and seems to be related to the North Atlantic Oscillation.

Atlantic effect

An effect similar to El Niño sometimes takes place in the Atlantic Ocean, where water along equatorial Africa's Gulf of Guinea becomes warmer and eastern Brazil becomes cooler and drier. This may be related to El Niño Walker circulation changes over South America.

Cases of double El Niño events have been linked to severe famines related to the extended failure of monsoon rains, as in the book Late Victorian Holocausts.

Non-climate effects

East Pacific fishingAlong the west coast of South America, El Niño reduces the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water that sustains large fish populations, which in turn sustain abundant sea birds, whose droppings support the fertilizer industry.

The local fishing industry along the affected coastline can suffer during long-lasting El Niño events. The world's largest fishery collapsed due to overfishing during the 1972 El Niño Peruvian anchoveta reduction. During the 1982-83 event, jack mackerel and anchoveta populations were reduced, scallops increased in warmer water, but hake followed cooler water down the continental slope, while shrimp and sardines moved southward so some catches decreased while others increased. Horse mackerel have increased in the region during warm events.

Shifting locations and types of fish due to changing conditions provide challenges for fishing industries. Peruvian sardines have moved during El Niño events to Chilean areas. Other conditions provide further complications, such as the government of Chile in 1991 creating restrictions on the fishing areas for artisanal fishermen and industrial fleets.

The ENSO variability may contribute to the great success of small fast-growing species along the Peruvian coast, as periods of low population removes predators in the area. Similar effects benefit migratory birds which travel each spring from predator-rich tropical areas to distant winter-stressed nesting areas. There is some evidence that El Nino activity is correlated with incidence of red tides off of the Pacific coast of California.

It has been postulated that a strong El Niño led to the demise of the Moche and other pre-Columbian Peruvian cultures.

ENSO and global warming

A few years ago, attribution of recent changes (if any) in ENSO or predictions of future changes were very weak [1]. More recent results (e.g. Collins et al.) tend to suggest that the projected tropical warming may follow a somewhat El-Nino like spatial pattern, without necessarily altering the variability about this pattern

Answer 3

El Nino was a storm passed through the Galapagos Islands which it changed the environment of the inhabitants thus resulting in the theory of evolution founded by Charles Darwin. Organisms now had to compete for survival and "organisms with traits best suited for survival will live longer and reproduce so the next generation would have these favourable traits." For example, giraffes used to have short necks until all the giraffes ate the leaves on the short trees. Now the only leaves were on tall trees so giraffes with slightly longer necks could live and eat the food. As a result over time giraffes' necks grew ever so slightly until all of the necks could reach the food.

Answer 4

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