El Niño–Southern Oscillation

Epic card · No. 2572

El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a global climate phenomenon that emerges from variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical Pacific Ocean. Those variations have an irregular pattern, but do have some appearance of cycles. The occurrence of ENSO is not easily predictable. It affects the climate of much of the tropics and subtropics, and has links (teleconnections) to higher-latitude regions of the world. The warming phase of the sea surface temperature is known as "El Niño" and the cooling phase as "La Niña". The Southern Oscillation is the accompanying atmospheric oscillation, which is coupled with the sea temperature change. El Niño is associated with higher than normal sea level air pressure over Indonesia and Australia, and across the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. La Niña has roughly the reverse pattern: high pressure over the central and eastern Pacific and lower pressure through much of the rest of the tropics and subtropics. The two phenomena typically...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Content published by Rebecca Lindsey and reviewed by Tom Di Liberto. Image credit to NOAA Climate.gov, Public domain