The name El Niño was originally used during the 19th century by the fishermen of northern P.... ni el

The name El Ni as originally used during the 19th century by the fishermen of northern Peru in reference to the annual flow of warm equatorial waters southward around Christmas time. The timing and intensity of El Ni vents vary widely. El Ni nd the Southern Oscillation appear to be the oceanic and atmospheric components of a single large-scale, coupled interactionthe El Ni outhern Oscillation (ENSO). During the warm phase of ENSO, the South Pacific trade-wind system undergoes a change of state, or seesaw, in which the westward-blowing trades weaken along the equator as the normally high pressure in the eastern South Pacific decreases and the low pressure over northern Australia and Indonesia rises. The pressure change and diminished trade winds cause warm surface water to move eastward along the equator from the western Pacific, while the warm surface layer in the east becomes thicker. Additionally, strong El Ni vents are associated with droughts in Indonesia, Australia, and! northeastern South America and with altered patterns of tropical storms in the tropical belt. During the stronger El Ni pisodes, the atmospheric teleconnections are extensive enough to cause unusually severe winter weather at the higher latitudes of North and South America.fish links