a sedan, it's a Subaru.

I am El Nino, all other tropical storms must bow before me!! We all remember that right?

But other than Chris Farley, what is an el nino?

What's up DNewsers, it's Trace and this is DNews. Thanks for tuning in. If you can remember

1997 and 98, you probably remember the media storm surrounding that year's El Nino. People

talked about it all the time, it was HUGE weather news, mainly because it was the strongest

El Nino in decades and there were a bunch in a row, which is rare.

You might’ve heard that 2014 is also an El Nino year, though forecasters predict it’ll

be much weaker than the one in 97-98.

The name El Nino traces back to the 1600s, when fisherman off the coast of Peru who noticed

warmer water usually appeared around Christmas-time. They named it El Nino which means Little Boy,

or Christ Child in Spanish. How that water GOT there, however, is crazy.

In a normal year, the trade winds blow from east to west blowing the warm surface water

with it. These winds create a kind-of hill of warm water on Asian coasts. That leaves

the deeper, colder water to backfill on the west coast of the Americas. Basically, the

temperatures of the ocean and the atmosphere around the east-central equatorial Pacific

have a HUGE impact on weather patterns around the world. But sometimes these temperatures

fluctuate, in a cycle known as the El Nino Southern Oscillation, or ENSO.

In an El Nino year, for some reason, the trade winds are super weak, so they're not pulling

warm water to Asia. Because of the warmer Americas, the trade winds weaken even MORE

causing the ocean to warm even MORE!

That oscillation continues causing wetter winters over the southeastern United States,

and dryer weather in Indonesia and Australia; is also increases hurricanes in the eastern

Pacific while lessening those in the Caribbean. La Ninas, are the opposite of El Nino, the

trade winds get really strong so we get COLDER waters around the equatorial Pacific. Which

means warmer winters in the Southeast US with fewer hurricanes in the Pacific and more in

the Caribbean, plus wetter summers in Australia with more cyclones.

Guys, this shiz is a lot. It's a house of cards. When one thing changes, the whole system

goes nutso.

These ENSO events cause lots of problems with flooding, cyclones, food production, snowfall,

and so on. I mean, the water raining down on the Americas has to come from somewhere.

Thus, Australia will likely see a terrible drought this year, and India will probably

have a lessened monsoon season; meaning less food production for both countries. Not good,

and these ENSO systems can go on for more than a year!

The link between global warming and increased ENSO events is still being checked out, but

a study in Nature Climate Change says that global climate change is going to cause MORE

of these events, and they'll be stronger. I've seen questions on why we haven't invented

weather controlling technology yet… this is why! We JUST started to understand how

this all works 30 years ago.

The events happen as part of the natural interaction of water and wind in the Pacific ocean, and

thus can be monitored and predicted so governments can prepare. NOAA used to maintain 70 buoys

strategically placed across the oceans. I say used to, because thanks to recent budgetary

limitations they can't afford to maintain them anymore. Therefore, NOAA's network of

oceanographic weather information is breaking down. So… there's that. It might not be

long until El Nino catches us by surprise, and that would be bad.

And before you ask, no we can't just invent something to control the weather. To do that,

we'd need to control ocean temperatures. Due to the amount of water IN the ocean, we'd

need to harness ALL the energy created in the exploding of 400,000 20-megaton Hydrogen

bombs. IF we could do that, we could heat the Pacific by choice. Seriously, don't get

your hopes up.

So, what is an El Nino? It's a cycle of warming and cooling that affects the weather of the

whole planet. It's nature, bro. Just nature.

And when it comes to the extremes of nature, we wanna thank Subaru for making this episode

possible. And especially the all-new 2015 Subaru Legacy. Every sedan has its benefits,

but only one combines them all. It’s not just a sedan. It’s a Subaru.

Anything else you want to know about? Any science questions you've really wanted to

get answered? Leave them in the comments here below the

video and be sure you subscribe for all the DNews every day of the week! You can also

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too! Thanks for watching!