Can 2015 El Nino cause more natural disasters?

The eastern Pacific Ocean is heating up, making the El Nino phenomenon likely to hit its peak in 1997 and causing unexpected disasters.

2015 El Nino will have the "greatest devastation" in history

According to the latest forecasts published on August 13 by the US National Oceanic and Meteorological Bureau's Meteorological Center (NOAA), the 2015 El Nino will be "devastating ."

Consequences of a landslide in the US when El Nino occurred in 1997.

'More than 90% of the possibility shows that El Nino will also take place in the Northern Hemisphere in the winter of 2015-2016 and about 85% of the possibility that this phenomenon will drag into the spring of next year ,' NOAA said.

This weather phenomenon was well known in 1997. It caused severe flooding in the western United States and drought in Indonesia. It is believed to cause epidemics in Africa and increase coffee prices around the world.

What is El Nino and strawberry cause?

El Nino is a warming phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific, mainly concentrated in the equator. We can see that in the picture below, the crimson part shows an unusually high temperature of seawater.

The red area shows a warmer surface temperature than usual.(Satellite image of the Earth.)

These warm currents often flow to the west of the ocean by winds blowing from East to West, thereby helping them reach places like Indonesia and Australia.

But when El Nino happens, the wind blows slowly and can change direction, causing the flow of hot water to flow back east and to South America.

El Nino occurs 2 to 7 years apart with varying severity, and the East Pacific Ocean may be 4 degrees C hotter than normal.

What happens when there is El Nino?

If serious, El Nino will warm up the atmosphere and change convection currents globally, in particular, the air pressure in the Pacific will be stronger and cause more major storms to occur in the western United States, especially especially in California state.

Not only that, there will be a lot of heavy rains in North America and South America, and in South Asia and Australia there will be abnormal drought , leading to drought.

El Nino also has an effect on stormy seasons across the Earth. The hotter the East Pacific, the more storms. However, the Atlantic Ocean will have very few storms due to the low pressure that storms cannot form.

Meanwhile, the Western Pacific will experience intense storms, and in 2015 there were five super typhoons forming here, while in other years there will be only one.

Not only does the weather, the sea water warms will cause coldwater fish to migrate to other regions, making the seafood industry in Latin America suffer a serious crisis. This phenomenon was witnessed by the fishermen and placed on El Nino (meaning 'God of bronze comedy' in Spanish) because it often appears on Christmas days.

Will El Nino be worse this time than in 1997?

The Nino Index on the Ocean (ONI) refers to the surface temperature of seawater in tropical waters in the Pacific Ocean. If ONI is 0, the normal condition, ONI is positive, the sea is warming and vice versa. If ONI is higher than 0.5, that is when El Nino appears and if it reaches 1.5 then this phenomenon has become serious.

El Nino has the strongest devastating power occurred in 1997 - 1998, when ONI was 2.3.The ONI index is currently at 1.0, but it is increasing in the past four months. Nearly all predictions say that this year's El Nino will exceed the 2.0 threshold and many believe that this will be the strongest El Nino since the beginning of follow-up in the 1950s.

How did El Nino in 1997 take place?

The prospect of a strong El Nino with record strength is very worrying, because the El Nino in 1997 caused weather phenomena that killed about 23,000 people and estimated physical damage. to 45 billion USD.

Consequences of a flood in the US when El Nino took place in 1982.

Many parts of South America have suffered from heavy rain and mudslides. On the other side of the Pacific, Indonesia recorded a terrible drought that caught many forests in Southeast Asia. 35 counties in California (USA) have been hit by heavy rains, causing floods and landslides .

The Earth is also hot when El Nino takes place. The year 1998 became the hottest year recorded at the time, and 2015 was almost certainly the hottest year in history.

If El Nino continues to become more serious, it is almost certain that South American countries will have above average rainfall and flooding rates in the next 6-9 months, while countries like Australia and Indonesia will severe drought.

Is climate change the cause of El Nino?

The impact of global climate change on El Nino is still being debated. Some studies say that although El Nino will not happen often, the number of ' serious ' El Nino will be more than twice that.

One of the problems of climate warming is that unexpected weather events will occur, because hot weather will cause higher levels of water in the air. This may make the El Nino floods much heavier than before.