The End of El Niño Might Make the Weather Even More Extreme
This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The driving forces behind these projections include the alternating Pacific Ocean climate patterns known as El Niño and La Niña, which can create huge shifts in temperature and precipitation across the North and South American continents. After almost a year of El Niño, La Niña is expected to take the reins sometime during the upcoming summer months. As climate change cooks the planet and the Pacific shifts between these two cyclical forces, experts say the conditions could be ripe for more extreme weather events. “We need to be ready for the types of extremes that have not been tested in the past.” During an El Niño, shifting trade winds allow a thick layer of warm surface water to form in the Pacific Ocean, which, in turn, transfers a huge amount of heat into the atmosphere.
El Niño usually brings dry weather, so why have we just had weeks of heavy rain?
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