End of mystery? Scientists propose a new theory about the El Niño phenomenon

You may have already heard about the El Niño phenomenon. This phenomenon is considered one of the causes of the severe heat waves and major climate events recorded in 2023. However, science still knows relatively little about the causes of the El Niño phenomenon. Understanding of this could be improved by the publication of studies conducted by researchers from Innsbruck, Austria.

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El Nino

• El Niño is characterized by abnormally warm waters of the Pacific Ocean.
• This weather phenomenon tends to produce more frequent and intense storms on the western coasts of North and South America.
• At the same time, it causes drought in southern Africa and Asia.
• These events typically last nine to twelve months on average, but are difficult to predict.
• Moreover, they do not have a well-defined pattern.
• The information is from IFLScience.

New discoveries

The exact cause of El Niño remains a mystery, but scientists have doubts. One of the most widely accepted theories is that the so-called “dipole oscillation mechanism” is responsible for climate phenomena. The possibility of connecting to the magnetic cycle of the Sun has fewer supporters.

But now, two studies have been published in journals Innovation in Earth Sciences that it Geophysical Research Letters It can provide important answers on this topic. The researchers suggest that changes in the Atlantic Ocean Longitudinal Circulation (AMOC), a large system of ocean currents that transport warm water from the tropics to the North Atlantic, govern climate change in the Southern Hemisphere.

This concept assumes that a collapse of the AMOC would block the flow of heat northward, leaving heat to accumulate in the southern hemisphere. As the AMOC stabilizes, northward flow will resume, leading to cooling in the Southern Hemisphere.

A study published in the journal The Innovation Geoscience

The problem, according to the researchers themselves, is that climate records in the Pacific do not match those in the Atlantic. Thus, a new mechanism emerges to try to explain this scenario.

The theory, called the Walker Key, suggests that if temperatures rose across the tropics, the Pacific would warm more in the west than in the east, with strong upwelling and surface divergence moving part of the thermocline to the east. But in some cases, the researchers continue, this thermal relationship can be weakened when there is too much radiation from the sun.

Studies show that although the concept of a “Walker switch” is difficult to prove, there is strong evidence for the phenomenon. New research must be done to unravel some of the mysteries of El Niño. But recent work gives hope that we will be able to predict the frequency and intensity of these climate phenomena in the future with greater accuracy.