WX BRIEF

El Niño
About every 5 yrs near Christmastime this climate changer brings
heavy rains to the eastern Pacific, massive droughts to the far western
Pacific and upsets normal weather patterns worldwide.
places, however, an El Niño is
Asia
Polar jet
responsible for substantial modifica-
North America tions to the weather that we would
normally expect to encounter.
Subtropical jet

What is El Niño?
Warm Strong trade winds
water El Niño is a periodic warming of
Cool the surface water in the equatorial
water Ecuador
Low pressure
Equatorial currents (strong)
Pacific ocean that happens about
Peru every 5 years and can last between
about 9 months and 2 years. This
warming is connected to the circula-
High
Australia
pressure
tion of the atmosphere both in its
Strong causes and its effects. Oceanic cur-
Peruvian rents are part of large-scale circula-
current tion patterns that are produced by the
Normal climate conditions over the Pacific Ocean basin. Trade winds create strong equatorial ocean
continual circulation of the atmo-
currents that feed warm water westward and allow cool water to rise along the South American sphere above the water’s surface.
coast. El Niño is a breakdown of that pattern that results in warmer waters in the eastern Pacific. Throughout the tropics warm
humid air from the northern and
southern hemispheres converges,
Warmer than average winter picks up heat and moisture and rises
Asia
Polar jet convectively. This is the reason for the
North America omnipresent band of towering cumuli
Wetter than average winter that ring the tropics. When the rising
Subtropical jet air meets the stratosphere and its
inverted temperature profile (warming
Weak trade winds with height), it can no longer rise and
Pressure instead it flows toward the poles. The
increases Ecuador now cool and drier air returns to earth
Strong counter current Warm Peru
in the subtropics, creating a region of
water high pressure at these latitudes. In the
Dryer northern hemisphere, surface winds
than
Australia
flow clockwise from a high and in the
average Pressure
decreases southern hemisphere they flow coun-
Weak
Peruvian terclockwise. As a result, the air flow-
current ing back toward the tropics has an
easterly component to it (blowing
Conditions in the Pacific during an El Niño event. Weakened trade winds allow the ocean to from east to west).
flow eastward and prevent the upwelling of cooler water along the South American coast. This This flow is known as the trade
reverses normally wet conditions in Indonesia and drier conditions in Perú.
winds and in the Pacific Ocean it
pushes the surface water westward,
By Karsten Shein nomenon are confirming that an El in turn drawing up cold subsurface
Comm-Inst, Climate Scientist Niño is likely before the end of the water that is flowing northward
year and that it may be moderate to along the western coast of South

E
arlier this year climatologists strong. But aside from sounding omi- America. This upwelling brings nutri-
monitoring conditions in the nous what does the reappearance of ents that support abundant marine
equatorial Pacific ocean noted El Niño actually mean for aviation? life and local fisheries, as well as
that conditions were setting up for In many parts of the world it will cooling the surface of the ocean. A
the development of an El Niño over mean very little and in others it will colder ocean surface keeps the
the coming months. Computer mod- just mean small changes in seasonal lower atmosphere cooler and drier
els designed to predict this phe- temperature or rainfall. In some and suppresses convection.

46 PROFESSIONAL PILOT / July 2014

 between Gilbert’s Southern
Oscillation and El Niño. Bjerknes
noted that the normally lower pres-
sure over the western Pacific and
higher pressure in the east supported
the trade winds that kept moving the
surface ocean water westward.
When the pressure dropped in Tahiti
and rose in Darwin, it weakened the
trade winds, which in turn slowed
the water, reducing the upwelling of
colder water along the South
American coast, and generally
allowing a warmer pool to establish
in the eastern Pacific.

Teleconnections
As a result, the warm ocean pro-
moted atmospheric heating and
convection, further dropping the
pressure and bringing heavy and fre-
quent rains to the eastern Pacific. At
the same time, the western Pacific
Image courtesy NASA/JPL

was cut off from its inflow of heated

water, and the cooler surface tem-
peratures in turn cooled the air
above the water, suppressing con-
vection and increasing air pressure.
In this way, the El Niño could
strengthen. Professor Bjerknes also
Sea level height anomalies during the 1997-98 El Niño event as measured by the concluded that this regional ocean-
TOPEX/Poseidon satellite-based radar altimeter. Strong counter currents push water eastward
atmosphere anomaly was affecting
along the equator, and the warm water also expands thermally, resulting in water levels that
may deviate by several feet above (white) or below (purple) normal conditions.
weather patterns well outside of the
equatorial Pacific and even Indian
oceans. He called these remote
At the other side of the Pacific, in Peru in the 1600s, the phe- influences, “teleconnections.”
Indonesia and Australia are normally nomenon was first termed “El Niño” The reason El Niño, or more
beneficiaries of these usual condi- —after the Christ child—by fisher- specifically El Niño—Southern
tions. As a result of the warm water men who noted that the poor fishing Oscillation—is able to affect weath-
being circulated westward, copious conditions seemed to take hold er conditions in many other distant
heat and moisture produce regular around Christmastime. But it wasn’t parts of the world is that the atmo-
rainfall that support the tropical rain- until the late 1800s that Peruvian sphere is a dynamic fluid. When
forests of the region as well as a scholars began to study this periodic conditions in one place change, the
great deal of wetland agriculture. occurrence which varied in strength rest of the fluid must be altered to
What’s more, the moisture feeds into and timing. In the 1920s a British accommodate the disturbance. The
the monsoon patterns throughout scientist stationed in India, Sir more substantial the disturbance,
southern and eastern Asia, support- Gilbert Walker, was studying varia- the more of the fluid is affected. An
ing agriculture that sustains billions tions in the annual Indian monsoon El Niño event is large enough that it
of people. and discovered that there were simi- can alter the position of the jet
lar periodic events. Sir Gilbert streams and affect the position and
Of droughts and floods examined air pressure measure- movement of troughs and ridges
ments throughout the Pacific and within them. Because these troughs
But, for hundreds, if not thousands Indian Oceans and noted that when and ridges are responsible for direct-
of years, indigenous populations the barometric pressure rose in ing much of the temperature and
along the coast of Peru experienced Darwin, Australia, it fell simultane- precipitation patterns throughout the
periods, every 3 to 7 years, when ously in Tahiti. This variability in globe, those patterns are altered
fish became scarce, and heavy rains pressure corresponded well with accordingly.
brought flooding, landslides and dis- intensification and failure of the Once an El Niño has formed, the
eases. On the other side of the Indian monsoon, and Sir Gilbert positive feedback between the
Pacific the regular rains ceased and termed it the “Southern Oscillation.” ocean and the atmosphere will
plants withered under extended A few decades later a Norwegian often strengthen it. Since we began
droughts, widespreading famine. meteorologist, Professor Jacob monitoring conditions there have
With the settlement of the Spanish Bjerknes, made the connection been several dozen strong El Niños.

48 PROFESSIONAL PILOT / July 2014

 shallower. The difference in the sur-
face layer depth between the equa-
tor and these shallower regions cre-
ates subsurface waves—many kilo-
meters in length—that move west-
ward at 1-2 kts. These “Rossby”
waves eventually reach Indonesia
and reflect back along the equator
as Kelvin waves. The faster, eastward
moving Kelvin waves bring deep
water closer to the ocean surface,
reducing equatorial sea surface tem-
peratures and ending the El Niño.
We have a pretty good handle on
how an El Niño forms when the
trade winds across the equatorial
Pacific weaken, how the event
strengthens because of the positive
feedback between the ocean and
the atmosphere, and how large-
scale waves beneath the ocean sur-
In January 2010, torrential rain in Cuzco, Perú brought chaos and tragedy. The Urubamba face gradually bring it to an end.
River, which runs through the Sacred Valley of the Incas and down past the ruins of Machu Unfortunately our understanding of
Picchu, swelled to an unprecedented volume of 1100 cubic meters (39,000 cubic feet) a second. why the trade winds periodically
Flooding killed at least 26 people and destroyed the homes and livelihoods of some 20,000. weaken to form an El Niño in the
first place remains limited. As a
The 1972-73 El Niño gained global After the 1982-83 El Niño, we real- result, forecasting El Niños requires
attention because it contributed to ized we needed a better way to mon- a combination of complex numeri-
the collapse of the Peruvian itor conditions that might indicate the cal models that run on supercom-
Anchovy fishery—then one of the development of an El Niño event, puters and statistical models that use
world’s largest fishery systems. But and observations to help us under- past El Niños for comparison to cur-
it really was the 1982-83 El Niño stand and predict future events. rent conditions. However, this
that captured the world’s attention Meteorological agencies from the hybrid forecasting approach has
as a phenomenon that could have US, Australia and elsewhere installed proven fairly reliable, and El Niños
widespread and catastrophic a network of moored buoys across are now forecast with reasonable
effects. the equatorial Pacific. This array, certainty up to a year in advance. Of
known as the Tropical Ocean Global course, this reliability is aided by the
Monitoring conditions Atmosphere (TOGA) network has fact that El Niño development is a
greatly improved the amount of data gradual affair, occurring over the
Because people had not yet real- we have on El Niños, and has course of many months, meaning
ized how significant an impact an improved our ability to forecast that once it begins, it takes a lot to
El Niño could have on the weather events. TOGA is supplemented by disrupt its growth.
around the planet, the 1982-83 El hundreds of drifting buoys that track
Niño went largely unpredicted. currents and even dive down up to 2 El Niño and aviation
When it developed into a major km below the waves to measure sub-
event however, it not only pro- surface conditions. Observations In general, the presence or
duced massive drought and wild- from ships crossing the region and absence of El Niño doesn’t mean
fires in Australia and Indonesia, but from satellites round out our observa- too much for the average flight
also brought drought to India and tions of El Niños. These observations operation. What it does mean how-
Africa and even rainfall deficits as have in turn helped us to more fully ever, is that typical weather patterns
far away as the Caribbean. Perú on understand how El Niños behave. for a particular location or region
the other hand experienced record But these aging buoys are not being may be disrupted. For example, a
rainfall—up to 11 feet in places replaced, and important data are moderate to strong El Niño may
that normally only saw a few inch- now being lost. produce a cooler and wetter winter
es in a season. The rainfall, coupled than normal in the Southeastern
with the rapid increase in sea level What causes El Niños to end? United States. This may mean more
caused when the trade winds actu- frequent frontal passages with low
ally reversed and pushed surface A typical El Niño will last around ceilings and an increased chance of
waters eastward, resulted in a year, with extreme events lasting freezing rain. Similarly, operations
unprecedented flooding and a dev- up to about 18 months. There is in and out of Peruvian or
astating Cholera outbreak. some uncertainty about what causes Ecuadorian airports may become
Elsewhere, the El Niño produced El Niños to end. A prevailing theory difficult due to the heavy clouds
flooding in the US western and is that on either side of the equator, and embedded thunderstorms that
Gulf states. the ocean’s surface layer becomes are not usual to the region between

50 PROFESSIONAL PILOT / July 2014

 Drifting ARGO buoys are
designed to descend several
thousand meters below the
ocean surface to take mea-
surements of subsurface condi-
tions that help us understand
El Niño behavior. The drifters
surface every 9 days to trans-
mit their obser vations to
oceanographers.

December and February. Flooding 1997. Farmers or fishermen who of production can have a substantial
and landslides are also a possibility can no longer feed their families economic impact unless companies
at some airports. may turn to violent activity to affect can adapt by shifting production
But aviation operations can be political change, protect their inter- elsewhere until the El Niño has ter-
affected by El Niño in a less direct ests, or simply to make a living. A minated.
way. El Niño has the potential to dis- 2011 study in the journal Nature Pilots who would like to track El
rupt many of the socio-economic determined that the presence of El Niño, or become better read on the
and political systems that depend on Niño doubled the risk of internal subject have a number of online
a steady climate. El Niño has a strife in 90 tropical counties studied. options. For example, NOAA main-
propensity for changing precipita- During and after a strong El Niño, tains a comprehensive El Niño web
tion patterns in many places. The flight planners would be wise to site (http://www.elnino.noaa.gov)
result is often failed crops, damaged closely evaluate the socio-political with graphics and other educational
infrastructure, and impacted liveli- situation in countries that may have resources, while its Climate
hoods—all of which can destabilize been affected. Prediction Center monitors El Niño’s
a subsistence or developing econo- Likewise, many pilots fly for com- current conditions and provides
my. For example, in the mid-1790s, panies with significant business long-range forecasts and warnings
a drought and famine in Egypt coin- operations in places that may be (http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov).
cided with a prolonged El Niño, and impacted by an El Niño. Unexpected These websites can help you to keep
led to a revolt of the populace. In flooding can close factories and track of whether 2014 will become
1876-78, the Great Famine of India make it impossible to move goods an El Niño year.
was a result of failed monsoons that and raw materials in many locations.
were in part attributed to strong El Conversely, severe and unusually
Niños. This event was one of the prolonged drought can disrupt pro-
triggers of the Indian nationalism duction at facilities that require a Karsten Shein is a
climatologist with the
movement that eventually gained ready supply of water, such as power
National Climatic
independence of India from the plants, paper mills or beverage bot- Data Center in
British. tling facilities. Workforces can simi- Asheville NC. He
Similarly, El Niño has been cited larly be impacted. Changes in formerly served as an
as a factor in the civil unrest in weather patterns under El Niño assistant professor at
Sudan in 1963, El Salvador, Uganda increase the incidence of epidemic Shippensburg
and the Philippines in 1972, Perú in diseases such as cholera, malaria, University. Shein holds a commercial
the early 1980s and Indonesia in and dengue fever. The resulting loss license with instrument rating.

52 PROFESSIONAL PILOT / July 2014