How does El Niño affect ocean waters?

During an El Niño event, the surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean become significantly warmer than usual. It also reduces the upwelling of cooler, nutrient-rich waters from the deep—shutting down or reversing ocean currents along the equator and along the west coast of South and Central America.

What does El Niño mean ocean?

the Christ Child
El Niño is a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. When capitalized, El Niño means the Christ Child, and was used because the phenomenon often arrived around Christmas.

What is the effects of El Niño?

El Niño conditions can cause a wide range of health problems, including disease outbreaks, malnutrition, heat stress, and respiratory diseases. The risk of communicable diseases increases when there is limited access to food, water, and sanitation.

How does El Niño affect the water cycle?

It is well known that evaporation rates increase as temperature rises. During El Niño periods, reduced precipitation in these regions leads to lower terrestrial moisture content, so there is less water in the soil available to evaporate.

How does El Niño affect fishing in the waters of the Pacific Coast?

An El Niño reduces the upwelling of cold water off the coast of the Americas. When this happens, fish either die or migrate into areas where they’ll find more to eat. Off California, fish populations may also be reduced. Marine mammals, such as seals and sea lions, that feed on fish may be affected.

How does El Niño affect the hydrosphere?

El Nino affects the hydrosphere because the water gets to be a lot warmer in the East Pacific and a lot colder in the West Pacific. The currents are also affected. La Nina affects the hydrosphere because the water is very cold in the east Pacific and in the middle of the Pacific, too.

How does El Niño affect rainfall?

El Niño occurs when warm water builds up along the equator in the eastern Pacific. The warm ocean surface warms the atmosphere, which allows moisture-rich air to rise and develop into rainstorms. During El Niño years, such as 1997, the southeast receives more rain than average.

How does the El Niño phenomenon affect the hydrosphere?

What are two effects of El Niño?

(i) The presence of the EL-Nino leads to an increase in sea-surface temperatures. (ii) It weakens the trade winds in the regions and causes heavy rainfall, floods or droughts in different regions of the world.

How does El Nino affect rainfall?

What are the global effects of El Niño and La Niña?

El Niño impacts weather systems around the globe, triggering predictable disruptions in temperature, rainfall and winds. La Niña is the opposite – a cooling phase of ENSO that tends to have global climate impacts opposite to those of El Niño.

What are the negative effects of El Niño on agricultural production?

The drought conditions due to El Niño have a direct negative impact on maize production and long term crop production statistics analysis carried out by WFP show that drops in maize yield are clearly more frequent during El Niño seasons particularly for South Africa (largest producer) and Zimbabwe (most food insecure).