THE EL NIÑO PHENOMENON
The natural phenomenon of El Niño which occasionally causes climactic changes to the Earth, comes from the movement of a mass of warm water that usually flows around the beaches of Australia. This mass, propelled by the wind, arrives at the South American coast and influences the climate of the entire continent.
The name comes from the "Boy Jesus" in Spanish, because the phenomenon usually occurs around Christmas. It was first observed in the 18th Century, but studies into it only began in the 80’s. New photo sequences taken by the American satellite Topex-Poseidon, of the Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reveal that this year’s El Niño is much greater than had been previously thought, and that it had grown quite suddenly. In just three weeks, between March 17 and April 6 of last year, the warm water mass tripled in size, going on to occupy 14
million square kilometers.
Previous studies predicted that this would be the worst El Niño in 150 years, but these newer photos show that it will be even worse than the predictions. This explains the unseasonable heat that caused temperatures of 33 degrees Celsius in Porto Alegre, in the extreme south of Brazil, in the middle of their August winter. The last time El Niño appeared with any great intensity, between 1983 and 1984, the Southern Region of Brazil was devastated by floods, and the Northeast had one of its worst droughts of all time.
Last year, the phenomenon was blamed for disasters like Typhoon Winnie, which killed 200 people in the Philippines, China and Taiwan, the Australian drought and for the flood that left 60,000 people homeless in the Philippines.
