Earth Science - El Niño La Niña (1)

To predict global climate change, we are monitoring the water temperature at specific locations in the ocean. Basically, ocean currents, due to the Coriolis effect from Earth's rotation, result in warm currents on the western side of the sea and cold currents on the eastern side. In the equatorial Pacific, the west is on average 5 degrees warmer. However, due to some global cause or periodically, temperature changes occur, and If a phenomenon where the temperature is 0.5 degrees higher than the average (average of the last 30 years) lasts for more than 5 months, it's called El Niño. If it's 2 degrees or more, it's a Super El Niño. Conversely, if the temperature is 0.5 degrees lower and this is maintained for over 5 months, it's La Niña, and if it's 2 degrees or more lower, it's a Super La Niña. When these significant temperature changes occur, a large-scale movement of water vapor takes place, leading to changes in atmospheric pressure. This can cause floods in dry climates and droughts in previously humid regions. It not only affects low-latitude regions but also influences the atmospheric pressure at high latitudes in the Arctic and Antarctic, consequently causing phenomena like extreme cold and heavy snowfall. Due to character limits, the representative sea surface temperature measurement points for each ocean will be covered in the next post...