El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
Introducción
The term El Niño is part of a broader phenomenon called El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It’s a recurring climate pattern involving changes in sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern tropical Pacific. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation is one of the planet’s most important natural mechanisms through which the ocean and atmosphere exchange energy and reorganize the global climate from year to year.
The phenomenon has three phases: the warm phase is El Niño, the cool phase is La Niña, and between the two lies a neutral or transitional phase, when neither dominates clearly. Although El Niño originates in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, its effects extend to other regions of the planet through processes known as climate teleconnections – atmospheric links that allow massive cloud formations to develop as a result of the enormous evaporation generated by the warming of ocean waters.
Also, when the natural phenomenon of El Niño coincides with a planet already warmed by human activity, its effects can be amplified. The World Meteorological Organization warned that during the last El Niño period (2023–2024), the combination of El Niño and climate change hit Latin America and the Caribbean with greater force, worsening droughts, heat waves, wildfires, extreme rainfall, and other impacts with significant human and economic costs.
Understanding these phenomena can help inform early warning and boost preparedness efforts.
The development of El Niño increases the chance of breaking temperature records and drives extreme weather events affecting infrastructure, food and energy systems around the world. View the playlist.
