The Biggest El Niño in Recorded History

Chuck, we are long overdue for an explainer on El Nino. >> Oh, yes. >> Okay. I don't know anything about it. >> Okay. >> Okay. So, that's the end of the explain. >> Well, here we go. [laughter] >> No, but we are nearby Columbia University that has their share of climate experts in particular Adam Soil.

Adam, welcome to Star Talk. >> Thank you. >> You you're not just an expert in climate, you specialize in extreme climate. >> Nice. >> Extreme weather. >> Extreme weather events. and their relation to climate. Yes. >> Oh my gosh. >> Which means that you are uh super busy [laughter] >> of late. Yes. I I would suspect so. And

so let's just the basics. >> Yeah. >> What the hell is El Nino and who does it affect most? >> Okay. So El Nino is a a naturally occurring climate phenomenon that has its center of action as we say in the equatorial Pacific. So on the equator u in the east side of the Pacific Ocean

like offshore Peru and around the Galapicos Islands which is normally very cold because water from the deep ocean comes up. So it's cold relative to the tropics around it. >> The the ocean temperature is colder. >> The sea temperature is cold >> compared to other places at low latitudes. Got it. And there's lots of

fish because there's nutrients coming up and all that stuff. Darwin, you know, discovered all the animals there. So it's normally very cold. And in an Elino event, it warms up. So the the the upwelling stops, the surface water becomes warmer and that shifts the circulation in the atmosphere too across the whole Pacific.

>> Why why the atmosphere? If you're talking about the ocean, >> places in the tropics that have high sea surface temperature tend to be places that have a lot of rain because the warm and humid air that's close to that warm surface water is buoyant and rises. Since you get normally like the western