El Niño
Context:
• The India Meteorological Department (IMD), while forecasting a “normal” southwest monsoon for this year also, revised downwards the definition of what constitutes average rainfall.
• The IMD does not expect an El Nino, a phenomenon associated with a warming of the Central Pacific and drying up of the rains over northwest India, the coming monsoon.
What is El Niño?
• El Niño is a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. Trade winds and atmosphere are also impacted by El Niño.
• El Nino is a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
• It is the “warm phase” of a larger phenomenon called the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
• It occurs more frequently than La Nina.
• La Nina, the “cool phase” of ENSO, is a pattern that describes the unusual cooling of the tropical eastern Pacific.
• La Nina events may last between one and three years, unlike El Nino, which usually lasts no more than a year.
• Both phenomena tend to peak during the Northern Hemisphere winter.
Source: THE HINDU.
