Are You Aware of El Niño?
- florencesanjaya
- Sep 26, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 6, 2022
Written by: M. Florence Sanjaya
Edited by: E. Charlene Sanjaya
You might have heard of greenhouse gases and rising sea levels when it comes to climate change, but what about the term El Niño? What does it actually mean? Although not very well-known, this phenomenon affects the Earth’s climate slowly and silently, bringing with it some dire consequences for the future. To understand how El Niño affects the planet better, we should first properly understand what it is.
According to National Geographic, El Niño is “a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters,” particularly “in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.” In normal conditions, warm surface water is blown across the tropical Pacific towards the western Pacific by strong trade winds. This results in upwelling, a movement that brings colder and nutrient-rich water to the surface due to a temperature difference in different depths of water. The nutrients are used by phytoplankton to photosynthesise, providing themselves with the nutrition they need and maintaining the continuity of the food chain.
When El Niño occurs, the trade winds that blow west become weaker in the Equator region, which results in the warm surface water travelling eastward instead, towards the northern South American coast. The depth of an area between warm surface water and cold water underneath called the thermocline deepens, interrupting the upwelling process. This means nutrients cannot reach the ocean’s surface and phytoplankton cannot sustain themselves. Ultimately zooplankton, small fish, and crustaceans that eat them lose their food source, and so do the rest of the chain. Fisheries will suffer greatly due to the dying or migrating fish populations.
When seen from a chemical perspective, gases have lower solubilities in warmer waters. As generally known, oxygen is needed for every living species to survive. If oxygen cannot dissolve easily in water, aquatic organisms will struggle to function normally and the world’s oceans would eventually become dead zones. Losing such a big part of the world’s marine biodiversity would undoubtedly impact species living on land negatively.
Climate change comes in many forms, one of which is the El Niño phenomenon. El Niño, although seemingly insignificant at first, can lead to devastating effects on both the planet and human communities as it interrupts certain natural processes that are essential for the continuity of species. Thus, it is important for us, humans, to start taking this issue seriously and mitigate the consequences as best as we can before it is too late.
Sources:
Campbell Biology, 2nd Canadian Edition
Comments