El Nino/La Nina And Surprised Climate Scientists

Schematic that shows the difference in water 
temperature in the Pacific Ocean between La Nina 
and El Nino. Red is warmer water, blue is colder

 As I've mentioned previously here in this blog hoodickey, it appears the world is headed into an El Nino pattern. 

This all has to do with water temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Which would seem to be their problem, except it affects the entire world. 

Throughout known history, we've switched back and forth between El Nino, which is a warming of the eastern Pacific, and La Nina, which is a cooling trend in the same area. 

The cycle is abbreviated as ENSO, which stands for El Nino-Southern Oscillation. 

Scientists have a pretty good basic handle on the myriad of effects each cycle has on weather in various parts of the world. For instance, La Nina tends to encourage drought in the western U.S. and more hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean.

El Nino tends to depress those hurricanes and sometimes makes the West Coast quite a bit wetter. And those are just a couple of examples.

Here's the newsy part of this whole thing. Climate scientists in general thought that as the world warms, El Ninos would become more frequent and La Nina less so.

At least in recent decades, though, the opposite seems to be happening. 

As Bob Henson reports in Yale Climate Connections:

"Many aspects of human-caused climate change are playing out as long predicted, including overall warming of the global atmosphere and oceans as well as intensification of rainfall extremes and the drying of many subtropical areas. 

Not so for ENSO. Top global climate models have predicted for more than 20 years that the tropical Pacific would gradually shift toward and 'El Nino-like' state, with the surface waters warming more rapidly toward the east than the west."

I don't know if this is a quick temporary blip - and quick, temporary blips with climate last years or decades - but it's beginning to seem like La Nina is the go-to mode in the eastern Pacific in terms of climate change. 

Henson again: 

"For example, since mid-2003, there have been ten 'years' (July to June) when La Nina conditions predominated, but only six for El Nino. Among years when the moderate-strength threshold was reached, seven were La Nina but only two were El Nino.

The La Nina-like temperature contrast in the tropical Pacific has now been strengthening for so long that it's gotten tougher to ascribe to natural variability."

As noted, we seem to be heading into an El Nino after a near record long and strong La Nina, which had gone on for a good three years. 

The weather and climate on Earth has always been wild. Us humans are making it even wilder. Which is not a good thing.