El Niño: Our Planet’s Chaotic Pendulum

You’ve almost certainly heard about it on the news: there is an El Niño developing right now. It is already causing all sorts of havoc around our planet like heat waves, flooding, and likely a worse hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean. El Niño events are complex phenomena that arise due to interactions between the ocean and atmosphere. The major site of action for an El Niño event occurs in the Pacific Ocean near the coast of Peru. We know that these events were well known to the Incan Civilization, as El Niño events had significant effects on local climate and industry. Some people don’t know that El Niños have a less extreme counterpart: La Niña. These two phases go back and forth, separated by a neutral state. This cycle occurs roughly every three-to-seven years and is fairly hard to predict. That’s a strange period of time for a climate oscillation to occur over, but more on that in a bit. For those of you who are interested in learning more about El Niño events and how Earth's climate works, this article is for you! I’m going to talk about different oscillations in climate, what exactly an El Niño is, and how we expect them to change in the future. <h1>Oscillations and Forcings</h1> Earth’s climate is a massive, interconnected system that fluctuates on many different timescales. Due to the sheer number of interactions going on between molecules, it is a truly chaotic system. We not only have the atmosphere but also the ocean and land components interacting with each other. Luckily for us, it is not purely random. We can identify patterns in different climate variables that follow general rules. The day-night cycle is a classic example of regularity in the climate system.  <a href="https://www.cantorsparadise.com/el-ni%C3%B1o-our-planets-chaotic-pendulum-10f71fb88c7d">Click Here</a>