http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ninonina.html http://www.weatherexplained.com/Vol-1/El-Ni-o-La-Ni-a.html http://climateavenue.com/cl.extr.la.nina.

htm World of Earth Science, Lerner&Lerner 2003 (pg 191)

EL NINO LA NINA DFINITION

Page 1 of 3 El Nio/La Nia Its impact on weather in Malaysia

What is El Nio?
Every three to seven years, a warm current of water replaces the usual cold current of water off the west coast of Peru, South America. This observed oceanic phenomenon is called El Nio. This warming is now known to occur over a wider area covering the central and eastern Pacific and has linkage with the occurrence of some major unusual weather conditions in different parts of the world like severe floods and prolonged droughts. In Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Australia, drier than normal conditions occur whereas central and eastern equatorial Pacific is unusually wet. Typically, El Nio lasts between 9 to 18 months. It usually begins to develop in the early part of the year, peaks at the end of the year and declines by early part of the following year. El Nio of the same intensity may not give rise to exact replicate of climate patterns.
http://www.met.gov.my/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=73&Itemid=160&limit=1&limit start=0

El Nio and La Nia are complex weather patterns resulting from variations in ocean temperatures in the Equatorial PacificEl Nio and La Nia are opposite phases of what is known as the El
Nio-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. The ENSO cycle is a scientific term that describes the fluctuations in temperature between the ocean and atmosphere in the east-central Equatorial Pacific (approximately between the International Date Line and 120 degrees West). La Nia is sometimes referred to as the cold phase of ENSO and El Nio as the warm phase of ENSO. These deviations from normal surface temperatures can have large-scale impacts not only on ocean processes, but also on global weather and climate. El Nio and La Nia episodes typically last nine to 12 months, but some prolonged events may last for years. They often begin to form between June and August, reach peak strength between December and April, and then decay between May and July of the following year. While their periodicity can be quite irregular, El Nio and La Nia events occur about every three to five years. Typically, El Nio occurs more frequently than La Nia.

El Nio
El Nio means The Little Boy, or Christ Child in Spanish. El Nio was originally recognized by fishermen off the coast of South America in the 1600s, with the appearance of unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean. The name was chosen based on the time of year (around December) during which these warm waters events tended to occur. The term El Nio refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate interaction linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central Equatorial Pacific. Typical El Nio effects are likely to develop over North America during the upcoming winter season. Those include warmer-than-average temperatures over western and central Canada, and over the western and northern United States. Wetter-than-average conditions are likely over portions of the U.S. Gulf Coast and Florida, while drier-than-average conditions can be expected in the Ohio Valley and the Pacific Northwest.

La Nia
La Nia means The Little Girl in Spanish. La Nia is also sometimes called El Viejo, anti-El Nio, or simply "a cold event."

La Nia episodes represent periods of below-average sea surface temperatures across the east-central Equatorial Pacific. Global climate La Nia impacts tend to be opposite those of El Nio impacts. In the tropics, ocean temperature variations in La Nia also tend to be opposite those of El Nio. During a La Nia year, winter temperatures are warmer than normal in the Southeast and cooler than normal in the Northwest. Source :http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ninonina.html

The coupled atmosphere-ocean phenomenon known as El Nio is frequently followed by a period of normal conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Sometimes, but not always, El Nio conditions give way to the other extreme of the El Nio-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. This cold counterpart to El Nio is known as La Nia, Spanish for "the girl child." http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/LaNina/

The original definition of El Nio goes back to the eighteenth or nineteenth century when Peruvian sailors coined the term to describe a warm southward current that appeared annually near Christmas off the Peruvian coast. Hence the name El Nio, Spanish for "the Child," referring to the Christ Child. Throughout the year, a northward cool current prevails because of southeast trade winds, causing upwelling of cool, nutrient-rich water. However, during late December the upwelling relaxes, causing warmer and nutrient-poor water to appear, which signals the end of the local fishing season. Over the years, the warm, southward current occasionally seemed more intense than usual and was associated with periods of extreme wetness along the normally very dry Peruvian coast. These events were called "years of abundance." In the early twentieth century, researchers found a strong inverse correlation, called the Southern Oscillation, between surface pressure over the Pacific and Indian Oceans, hence the saying, "When pressure is high in the Pacific and Indian Oceans." Researchers tried, but failed, to correlate the Southern Oscillation with Indian monsoon failures. In 195859, a strong "year of abundance" occurred, in which a large area of warm water in the Pacific Ocean extended from the South American coast westward to the International Date Line. Coinciding with the extensive warm water were wetness along the Peruvian coast, low surface pressure in the eastern Pacific, and high pressure in the western tropical Pacific. Consequently, scientists in the early 1960s concluded that these events were associated and occurred interannually. Since then, the term "El Nio" (or warm episode) has described not a local warm current, but warming of the tropical Pacific surface waters occurring every two to

seven years and associated with changes in the atmospheric circulation in the tropical Pacific and worldwide. http://www.weatherexplained.com/Vol-1/El-Ni-o-La-Ni-a.html

La Nia is a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that is the counterpart of El Nio as part of the broader El Nio-Southern Oscillationclimate pattern. During a period of La Nia, the sea surface temperature across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean will be lower than normal by 35 C. In the United States, an episode of La Nia is defined as a period of at least 5 months of La Nia conditions. The name La Nia originates from Spanish, meaning "the girl," analogous to El Nio meaning "the boy." La Nia, sometimes informally called "anti-El Nio", is the opposite of El Nio, where the latter corresponds instead to a higher sea surface temperature by a deviation of at least 0.5 C, and its effects are often the reverse of those of El Nio. El Nio is famous due to its potentially catastrophic impact on the weather along both theChilean, Peruvian and Australian coasts, among others. La Nia is often preceded by a strong El Nio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Ni%C3%B1a

What is a La Nia?
Like El Nio, La Nia is a major shift in the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific. The atmosphere and oceans of our planet are always in motion, and these motions generally follow general circulation patterns. In the equatorial Pacific Ocean, there are three patterns -- a normal pattern, an El Nio or warm pattern, and a cold pattern sometimes called La Nia, which is Spanish for "the girl." The warm and cold terms describe conditions in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. La Nia's effects on the world's climate seem to be the opposite of El Nio's, but it is unclear how exactly the two are related. Often, but not always, La Nia events follow an El Nio. http://classic.globe.gov/fsl/html/templ.cgi?butler_lanina&lang=es

What is El Nio Southern Oscillation ENSO)? El Nio appears irregularly, once every three to seven years, and with varying intensity. Today it is associated with unusually warm water over large areas of the equatorial Pacific Ocean (Figure 2). As a result of the heat retention capacity of the ocean relative to the atmosphere these changes in ocean temperatures lead to changes in the global weather patterns. As an example hurricane activity in the north Atlantic and the southeastern United States is negatively correlated with El Nio. El Nio was originally identified and named by the fishermen of northern Peru , who recognized warm wet years during which their fisheries changed dramatically, floods caused damage and Peruvian deserts became grassland. The fisherman coined the name El Nio in the

late nineteenth century after a warm southward current that appeared every year around Christmas (the Christ child= El Nio). Years of unusually high rainfall in northern Peru were associated with what the fishermen thought was an intensification of the annual current. It was not until the 1960 s that a Swedish scientist by the name of Bjerknes, working at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography linked warming of the coastal ocean off Peru (and the equatorial Pacific) with larger scale climatic phenomena. It was then that a relatively small and inoffensive coastal current was associated with dramatic global weather disturbances. Over the last 30 years the influence of El Nio, on oceanic and atmospheric conditions throughout the globe has been well documented. El Nio, of course, has been along for much longer than that, it can be seen in proxy data (such as lake sediments, coral growth rings, tree rings and ice cores) going back hundreds and even thousands of years.

Figure 2.Standarized sea surface temperature (colors) and wind (arrows) anomalies (i.e. departures from the long term average) for El Nio (left) and La Nia (right). Note that the temperature anomalies are not uniformly distributed and certain areas actually cool during El Nio. The first recognition of interannual changes in the atmosphere can be traced to a British scientist by name of Sir Gilbert Walker who in the 1920 s noticed that years when barometric pressure was high over southern South America it was low over Australia and other years the opposite occurred. Walker named this phenomena the Southern Oscillation. Today the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) is calculated as the difference between the barometric pressure at Tahiti and that at Darwin , Australia . Together with sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific the SOI is used by scientists to determine the occurrence and strength of El Nio (Figure 3). More recently, in the 1980 s, Peruvian scientists coined the name La Nia for anomalously cool temperatures along Peru . This phenomenon also has significant climatic impacts.

Figure 3. Time series of the Southern Oscillation Index (top) and sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies (bottom) for the equatorial Pacific. When there is a strong barometric pressure gradient (high in Tahiti and low in Darwin , Australia ) the SOI is positive and SST is anomalously cold and La Nia conditions exist. When the opposite occurs we have El Nio. Strong El Nios occurred in 1982-83 and 1997-98. Even though El Nio has been extensively studied what initiates it remains an enigma. Theories ranging from chaos to volcanic eruptions in the tropics have been put forth. Today we are not yet able to accurately predict the timing and intensity of the phenomena. However once initiated the development of an El Nio is relatively well understood as a result of an array of ocean observing systems composed of satellites, ships and autonomous platforms (such as drifters and moorings) that have been in place for the last 25 years (Figure 4). In order to better understand El Nio it is informative to first look at the so-called normal condition. As a consequence of the earths rotation (see below for a description of the Corioliseffect) an asymmetry in winds and sea surface temperatures (SST) develops in the tropical Pacific. The eastern equatorial Pacific is remarkably and to some extent abnormally cool. SST can be less than 20 C despite continuous heating by the tropical sun. This cool water develops as a result of several inter-related processes. First there is a continuous export of heat (and water, the sea level in Indonesia is 30 centimeters higher than off Peru ) to the western Pacific by the easterly trade winds. The largest area of warm 30 C water (30 C is essentially the theoretical limit for ocean temperatures) of the entire globe, develops as a result in the western Pacific and eastern Indian Oceans . This area is referred to as the western Pacific warm pool. A second reason for the SST gradient, cool in the east and warm in the west, can be found in the vertical distribution of ocean temperatures. A thin surface layer of warm water is separated from a large reservoir of cool water by a third thin layer referred to as the thermocline (a region of rapid change in temperature). The thickness of the thin warm layer is not uniform in the ocean. As heat and water accumulate in the western Pacific the

warm layer thickens to close to 200 meters and in the eastern Pacific it thins to 50 meters or less. The final driver of the east-west asymmetry in SST is associated with locally wind-driven (by the same trades) upwelling. Upwelling refers to vertical currents that move water from about 60-100 meters depth to the surface. In regions where the warm layer is less than 60 meters deep, like the eastern tropical Pacific, the water that is brought to the surface is very cold. The atmosphere responds directly to the warm surface layer. High pressure is established over cool waters (eastern Pacific) and low pressure over warm waters (western Pacific). In this sense the ocean and atmosphere are like a chicken and an egg. Which came first, the cool eastern Pacific or the trade winds? The reality is that they both developed together and it is this close coupling that is at the heart of El Nio http://www.biologyeducation.net/news-and-articles/el-nino-la-nina

What is the difference between La Nia and El Nio?

El Nio and La Nia are extreme phases of a naturally occurring climate cycle referred to as El Nio/Southern Oscillation. Both terms refer to large-scale changes in sea-surface temperature across the eastern tropical Pacific. Usually, sea-surface readings off South America's west coast range from the 60s to 70sF, while they exceed 80F in the "warm pool" located in the central and western Pacific. This warm pool expands to cover the tropics during El Nio, but during La Nia, the easterly trade winds strengthen and cold upwelling along the equator and the west coast of South America intensifies. Sea-surface temperatures along the equator can fall as low as 7F below normal during La Nia. Both La Nia and El Nio impact global weather patterns.
http://www.weatherexplained.com/Vol-1/El-Ni-o-La-Ni-a.html

DIFFERENCES

El Nino Weather
y y y y

La Nina Weather
y y y y y

Rain and flooding along the Pacific coast Warm water disrupts food chain of fish, birds, and sea mammals Tornadoes and thunderstorms in southern US Fewer than normal hurricanes in the Atlantic

Snow and rain on the west coast Unusually cold weather in Alaska Unusually warm weather in the rest of the USA Drought in the southwest Higher than normal number ofhurricanes in the Atlantic

El Nio-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Spanish word meaning "the little boy", refers to the Christ child, because the phenomenon is usually noticed around Christmas time in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of South America. The most recent occurrence of El Nio started in September 2006 and lasted until early 2007, followed by La Nina.

La Nia Characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Spanish word meaning "the little girl" Formation of a weak La Nia in 2007, strengthening in early 2008. The La Nia condition often follows the El Nio.

ENSO is associated with floods, droughts, and other disturbances in a range of locations around the world. Cyclical 3 to 8 years. Prevalent in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian

Associated with prolonged snowstorms and low temperatures.

Prevalent in Pacific Ocean,

Oceans. It is believed that El Nio conditions suppress the development of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic and favors tropical storms in the Pacific Ocean

cyclical longer than 3 - 8 years It is believed that La Nia (cold conditions in the equatorial Pacific) favor hurricane formation.

http://climateavenue.com/cl.extr.la.nina.htm

The Pacific Ocean Creates Extremes

El Nio is described as an extreme interaction of the ocean and atmosphere as part of the Southern Oscillation. The Southern Oscillation happens in the Pacific Ocean between Asia and South America. Because of the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, it creates and controls the climate, specifically the large-scale interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean. With other oceans and seas, land and water temperatures affect the atmospheric circulation. As these bodies of water are smaller, the land tends to take away from the ocean and atmosphere interaction. In the Pacific, these major interactions are essential in creating El Nio Southern Oscillation, or ENSO.

What is El Nio - Southern Oscillation?

Fluctuations in the Walker Circulation are called the Southern Oscillation. These are described as changes in the average atmospheric pressure between the mid-Pacific and Northern Australia. It is a major air pressure shift. These are measured by the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), which calculates the differences in atmospheric pressure between Tahiti and Darwin, Australia. Major fluctuations in the SOI indicate whether El Nio or La Nia is in effect. When the SOI is negative, El Nio is happening or when it is positive, La Nia is in effect. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology monitors and keeps up-to-date information on the current El Nio - Southern Oscillation status.
http://www.suite101.com/content/el-nio-southern-oscillation-a35214

world of earth science, lerner&lerner 2003 pg 191 el nino and la nina are name given to chANGES in the winds, atmospheric pressure, and seawater that occur in the pacific ocean near the equator.elninonad la nina are opposite phases of a back and forth cycle in the pacific ocean and the atmosphrere above it. Unlike winter and summer, however, el nino and la nina do not change with the regularity of the seasons: instead they repeat on average about every three or four years. They are extremes in a vast repeating cycle called the southern oscillation, el nino being the warm extreme and la nina the cold extreme.

Although el nino and la nina take place in a small portion of the pacific, the changes caused by southern oscillation can affect the weather in large parts of asia, Africa, Indonesia and north and south America. An el nino during 1982-83 was associated with record snowfall in parts of rocky mountains, flooding in the southern united states, and heavy rainstorms in southern California, which brought about floods and mudslides. The name el nino comes from Peruvian fishermen. They noticed that near the end of each year, the seawateroff southern American coast becomes warmer, which made fishing much poorer. Because the change appeared each year close to Christmas, the fishermen dubbed it el nino, Spanish for boy child referring to Christ child. Every few year, the changes brought el ninos,with el nino were particularly strong or long lasting. During these strong el ninos , the warmer sea waters nearly wiped out fishing and brought significantly changes in weather. For example, normally dry areas on the shore could receive abundant rain, turning deserts into lush grasslands for as long as these strong el ninos lasted. In the 1950s and 60s it was found el ninos were associated with increased sea surface temperatures throughout the eastern tropical pacific. The other half of the repeating cycle has ben named lamina or the girl child. This phase of the southern oscillation is also sometimes called el Viejo, or the old man.