What Exactly Is El Nino?

Many people have a hard time understanding exactly what is going on when the weather man says that El Nino is occurring. It is a very important feature of weather, and you should make every effort to understand it in order to understand the weather around your area. Essentially, El Nino refers to a rapid change in the temperature of the water in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The last El Nino cycle began in September 2006, and was projected to carry on until at least 2007. The El Nino phenomenon has far-reaching effects, and here are some of the ways it can change the weather in your area.

El Nino has many effects on smaller parts of the environment. In all of the affected areas, water levels in streams rise. This results in higher water levels in lakes and ponds. It creates a huge domino effect of environmental oddities causing more. The increased amounts of water cycling around can very well cause more risks of landslides or flooding. The amount of natural disasters increases slightly during El Nino. It is also blamed for debris being dislodged from rivers and subsequent higher levels of pollution being on the move.

Living things are affected as well. Phytoplanktons are the most basic food source in the ocean. When El Nino comes around, they are less able to live in the ocean. This creates a wave in the food web, and may animals die out. The amount of fish goes down drastically, and this in turn affects humans who live off of the fish as a food supply. Fortunately since it is a natural process that has been happening for as long as the world has been around, no species go extinct, and usually fisherman are able to cope with the slightly lower levels of fish.

If you listen to the news for long enough, you will hear something about El Nino. When you know what it is, the news will start to make sense. You will see why your local climate is being affected, and why certain things are happening as a result of the weather phenomenon. If you want to read further on the subject, there are entire books written on El Nino that explain every single aspect of it.