Because life on earth is shaped by its climate and the earth's climate changes as dramatically as the atmosphere, Man can ascertain climate from the past by observing the sea and soil. Climate cycles last 100,000 years, where the first half is colder and the second, warmer. Inside these are sub-cycles lasting 20,000 years; it has been noted that all cold places have been warm, all wet, dry, and vice versa. Scientists are studying how seawater and air are partners, mirror images of each other. Additionally, becau

Gold, Susan Dudley. Blame It On El Nino. Steck-Vaughn Publishers. TX. 2000

EL NINO/LA NINA AND ITS EFFECT ON GLOBAL WEATHER

The 1982-83 El Nino was the worst since 1891. A warm tongue of water stretched eight kilometers along the equator, heating water as much as -10oC (14oF) above normal (Gold 38). Warning signs were abundant about this El Nino. Some of them came from a Dr. Barber, a marine biologist from Duke University Marine Lab who was working in the equatorial Pacific. He happened upon the beginning of this El Nino when he noticed no fish in the ocean, the weather was hot and muggy and the sea surface temperatures soared. When his engine quit, his boat was pushed by the equatorial current going the wrong way. He noticed a complete reversal of normal currents. (They should've been westward, with the trade winds) (Falklam 78).

Human activities are beginning to affect weather and climate with a force equal to that of natural events (Falklam 30). Although it has been said that climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.

Concurrently, the computers at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) were sending in what the scientists thought were skewed data and reprogrammed them to reject it as defective. When Dr. Barber corroborated the data, the scientists then knew they were at the start of a major warm El Nino, but it was too late to warn about it (Falklam 82).

While the 1982-83 El Nino was the worst to date economically, the one that occurred in 1997-98 has been categorized as a super El Nino (called El Meano). Damages are still being tallied today from this event but some examples of what it did are: torrential rains turned Peru's Sechura Desert into the second largest lake 90 miles (144 km) long, 20 miles (32 km) wide and 10 feet (16 km) deep in that country; the northeast US had the warmest winter on record, which helped citizens save five billion dollars on energy costs; rain washed smog from Los Angeles air to result in the cleanest air in the region in 50 years; although classified as a super El Nino, 1997-98 was the first time meteorologists were able to forecast the event more than six months in advance, thereby saving regions from unnecessary destruction (Gold 3).

Fagan, Brian. Floods, Famines and Emperors-El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations. Basic Books. NY. 1999

Boesen, Victor. Doing Something About the Weather. G.P. Putnam Sons. NY. 1975.

Scientists are trying to figure out when bad El Ninos will occur, since they are not cyclical. Currently, that estimate is every 7.2 years. If we understand ENSO, we'll understand how the atmosphere-ocean climate works. One must remember that El Nino and La Nina are not disasters, anomalies or cruel twists of fate-they are how the earth works (www.abcnews.go.com). There is no 'normal' El Nino or La Nina although they do follow certain patterns.

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Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)