El Nino and Romania – does a phenomenon that happens many thousands of kilometers away really directly affect us?
Sometimes we hear that El Niño will bring the "doom" of Romania or that this El Niño is showing us what the next winter will be like. Should it be so? Very briefly, El Niño describes the warming of the entire Pacific Ocean basin in the tropics. When does it… El Niño, a phenomenon that occurs many thousands of kilometers away, does not directly affect Romania's climate. El Niño describes the warming of the entire Pacific Ocean basin in the tropics and affects the general circulation of the atmosphere and on the average global temperature. It is a natural phenomenon, and its effects have been analyzed by archaeologists in Peru and Europe. However, when El Niño occurs, it virtually changes the atmospheric circulation, is an additional source of heat and ultimately affects southern Africa, eastern Africa and northeastern Brazil. This natural disturbance causes large fluctuations in the climate system on a seasonal and annual scale, and El Niño and La Niña have been nicknamed the “terrible children of the climate” when they were rare.
ที่ตีพิมพ์ : 2 ปีที่แล้ว โดย Ashley ใน Weather
Sometimes we hear that El Niño will bring the “doom” of Romania or that this El Niño is showing us what the next winter will be like. Should it be so? Very briefly, El Niño describes the warming of the entire Pacific Ocean basin in the tropics. When does it appear and how does it manifest itself? How does El Niño affect Romania’s climate? What is the history of the phenomenon?
“El Niño does not have a direct impact on Romania’s climate. El Niño does not directly affect Romania, and I struggle with this idea, which often comes up,” explains climatologist Roxana Boyariu to HotNews.ro.
What happens when El Niño occurs? The intensity of the trade winds decreases, sometimes they turn back, as a result, warmer waters appear, which heat up even more, because the winds are no longer blowing. The water heats up more and more and an additional source of heat appears. On the other hand, when La Niña occurs, the opposite phenomenon occurs, the winds increase, become more intense, and the water becomes colder than usual. And in this case, there are consequences on the general circulation of the atmosphere and on the average global temperature.
El Niño is a natural phenomenon, it probably appeared several million years ago, and we know from history about its consequences, the consequences have also been analyzed by archaeologists in Peru.
• How weird the weather has been in Romania over the past decade: a guide to climate change for every month of the year
“El Nino is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at the junction of the ocean and the atmosphere, typical for the tropical part of the Pacific Ocean. Occurring in the context of global warming, its impact is exacerbated by global warming as it virtually changes the atmospheric circulation, is an additional source of heat and ultimately affects southern Africa, eastern Africa and northeastern Brazil,” he explains. Roxana Boyariu.
But how far does the influence of El Niño extend?
“Europe is less affected, it is in the middle latitudes and does not have such a more direct connection than other areas that are more distant but still connected, for example, by circulation in the tropical zone (…) There are works , which show that the greater influence over the European area, and indeed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, occurs in winter when there is a mature phase of El Niño, especially in the second part of winter, when El Niño promotes, through its interaction with the vortex, episodes of more severe winter,” says Roxana Boyariu,
The key word is CHOSEN, and we’re talking in a probabilistic sense here, because Europe’s climate is influenced by many factors, and these factors, depending on how they are configured, ultimately have an overall effect.
Do we know what the winter in Romania will be like in 2023-24 due to El Niño? No! This is only a generalization because the climate system is too complex. “Everything is based on the laws of physics, but this complexity of the system forces us to introduce a probabilistic language. (…) There is a physical logic, and the areas around the Pacific Ocean are most affected.”
There are some effects, but not in summer, but in the coming winter, in the mature phase of the phenomenon, El Niño causes changes in the general circulation, and in this case, winter changes how the polar vortex behaves in the northern hemisphere. Depending on the vortex variations, you may have better or harsher winter conditions. The mature phase usually starts in December-January, and that’s when the strongest impact is felt, explains Roxana Bojariou.
El Niño is a scary phenomenon, but it also fascinates climatologists because this natural disturbance causes large fluctuations in the climate system on a seasonal and annual scale. El Niño and La Niña have been nicknamed the “terrible children of the climate.” The last La Nina event ended in 2022, having started in 2020, lasting almost three years, which is rare.
When the effects of El Niño were extremely strong, the phenomenon was called a “Super El Niño,” with four examples occurring in the past 50 years: 1972-1973, 1982-1983, 1997-1998, and 2015-2016. In Peru, the rains caused by the worst “editions” of El Nino led to severe landslides, and in 1972-73 the ocean temperature rose so much that people could no longer fish. During another brutal El Niño in 1997-98, the total damage in Peru exceeded 3.5 billion dollars (buildings, agricultural land, infrastructure).
• Romania, rains and snows in the last 120 years – Which years were the driest and when it rained continuously
The name “El Niño” comes from the Spanish language and means “Child” or “Boy”, referring to the Baby Jesus (Jesus Christ). The term was first used by fishermen in South America to describe an unusual increase in the temperature of the Pacific Ocean water off the coast of Peru and Ecuador, which usually occurs during the Christmas holidays, and was so named because of its occurrence during this period.
The phenomenon “entered” the scientific field in 1891, thanks to the young geographical society in Lima (Peru). Its geographers associated the torrential rains that fell that year on the desert region in the north of the country with the presence of abnormally warm waters on the coast.
Fishermen in South America have noticed that once every few years around Christmas the ocean waters warm up, and there have been a few times a century when a “super El Nino” has occurred. and the fishermen had little to catch because the fish died after the smaller organisms that the fish normally fed on disappeared due to the high temperature of the sea.
El Niño can also lead to changes in fish migration: during these El Niño events, fish can migrate in search of cooler water and feeding grounds. As a result, traditional fishing grounds become less productive, but also fish that normally live in warmer waters can reach fishing grounds closer to shore.
This current has been known for centuries to the fishermen of the Peruvian city of Paita. They affectionately nicknamed it “el corriente del Niño” because this “child” that appeared at Christmas brought popular and rare tropical species such as sea bream, yellowfin tuna , octopus or shrimp. Sometimes El Niño was seen more as a blessing, a time of abundance, and for these fishermen the decrease in anchovy biomass was not a problem, as a rarer and more expensive fish appeared. But as you’ll read below, when El Niño came with incredible force, it left behind a disaster, not a blessing.
El Nino = warming of the entire Pacific Ocean basin in the tropics
How do climatologists describe the El Niño phenomenon?
El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO – El Niño Southern Oscillation) is a manifestation of the connection between the ocean and the atmosphere in the equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean.
The term El Niño was originally used to describe a warm ocean current that periodically occurs along the coasts of Ecuador and Peru, negatively affecting local fisheries.
Since then, it has been used to denote the warming of the entire Pacific Ocean basin in the tropics.
This oceanic event is associated with global fluctuations in surface pressure in the tropical and subtropical zone, called the Southern Oscillation. This phenomenon of communication between the atmosphere and the ocean, which lasts from 2 to 7 years, is known as El Niño – Southern Oscillation.
It is often measured by the difference between the surface pressure anomalies on the islands of Darwin and Tahiti and the sea water temperature in the central and eastern regions of the Pacific Ocean.
During an ENSO event, the trade winds decrease in intensity, altering ocean currents in such a way that seawater temperatures rise, which exacerbates the decrease in trade wind intensity.
This phenomenon has important effects on wind patterns, seawater temperature, and precipitation in the tropical Pacific and affects the climate throughout the Pacific region as well as in other parts of the world. The cold phase of ENSO is called La Niña.
The opposite phenomenon, called La Niña, is characterized by cooler water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean and can have different climatic effects than El Niño.
El Niño and the terrible sacrifices of several hundred years ago
People who lived almost a thousand years ago in the territory where the state of Peru is now located, feared the consequences of El Niño. A society more than 600 years ago, the Chimu people of Peru, felt the effects of the most violent El Niño-type phenomenon, and, according to archaeologists, the inhabitants also resorted to human sacrifice in the hope that the disasters would disappear.
In many ancient cultures, rulers and priests decided to take drastic measures when community life was severely affected by natural disasters, and sacrifices, ancient people believed, were a way to appease the gods in the hope that things would turn around. Animal sacrifice was widely practiced throughout the world, but human sacrifice was fortunately much less common.
The pre-Columbian population of Peru could not know what El Niño is and that it greatly changes the temperature of ocean waters. The people of that time, however, witnessed catastrophic rains that seriously affected their way of life and which likely brought periods of famine and social instability, compromised fisheries and destroyed crops.
Archaeologists discovered at a site called Huanchaquito-Las Llamas the skeletons of children with signs of violent sacrifices, as well as unusually large deposits of mud, indicating that the region received a lot of rain during some years of the 12th century.
หัวข้อ: Romania, El Niño