El Nino - Persuasive Letter
El Niņo, it was learned, is as much an atmospheric event as an oceanic one. The winds and the waters communicate with each other halfway around the world. (Johnson) In a normal year, the trade winds blow from South America to Asia, pushing warm water to the far reaches of the western equatorial Pacific. During an El Niņo, this pool of warm water sloshes across the Pacific to Peru as the normal winds weaken. The warmer-than-normal water adds heat and moisture to the air above it, creating thunderclouds and a typical storm track with far-reaching effects. (Johnson) El Niņo is a mass of warm water now in the southern Pacific. It is having a global impact on the weather. The warm water increases the water vapor over the Pacific and the Earth's normal weather pattern. The result: heavy rains in the usually dry Southwest and fires in the drought-stricken rain forests of Malaysia. (Jarvinen) El Niņo is a seasonal ocean current that flows southward along the coast of northern Peru, it is often associated with atmospheric changes. Scientists generally refer to El Niņo and its related phenomena as the El Niņo-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The current itself is warm, nutrient-poor, and relatively low in salinity. Its name (Spanish, "th
El Niņo is a large pool of unusually warm water that appears roughly every three to four years in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean along the equator. (Fullmer) During an El Niņo year, the easterlies blow strongly for a number of months, the thermocline nearly reaches the surface in the eastern equatorial Pacific, and enormous volumes of warm surface water build-up in the west ... then the winds weaken ... all of that energy has to go somewhere. First, the easterly winds begin to retreat eastward. As the wind retreats, equatorial upwelling decreases, reducing the supply of nutrients to surface inhabitants. Sea level drops in the west and rises in the east as warm surface water surges eastward along the equator in the form of a pulse. When this pulse of relatively warm water reaches the eastern end of the basin, typically a few months later, it is forced to turn northward and southward along the coast, causing sardines and other species of fish to move, and raising sea level as it goes. These effects have been felt as far north as Canada and as far south as central Chile. As the moist air above the ocean warms, deep clouds are formed which produce heavy rain along the equator, shifting ever eastward. Atmospheric pressure adjusts accordingly. Barometers fall over the central and eastern Pacific and rise over Indonesia and Australia, resulting in further weakening and eastward retreat of the easterlies, just as Sir Gilbert Walker observed almost 75 years ago. Scientists now know that the devastating effects of El Niņo are not just confined to the equatorial Pacific, but throughout the Americas, and perhaps beyond. We are only beginning to appreciate how massive these disasters are. (Allen) Peruvian fisherman first noticed it during Christmas over 200 years ago. El Niņo is a periodic and huge, phenomenon. This year's is one and half times the size of the United States, has enough water to fill the Great Lakes 30 times over and has 93 times the energy Americans extracted from fossil fuels in 1995. (Wilson) El Niņo is a periodic, weather-disrupting condition in the tropical Pacific, in which westward-blowing trade winds weaken, allowing warm water to drive east to South America. (Livezey)
Some common words found in the essay are:
El Niņo, El Niņos, el niņo, Niņos Weisser, Coriolis Effect, Southern Oscillation, Galapagos Islands, Gilbert Walker, Johnson Indirectly, Andes Peru, South American, warm water, el niņos, equatorial pacific, el nino, southern oscillation, effects el niņo, tropical pacific, south america, effects el, winds weaken, johnson el niņo, el niņo periodic, pacific el niņo, predict el niņo,
Approximate Word count = 3089
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)
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