Despite popular belief, this is not the first El Nino we've encountered. In fact, El Nino had been recurring about every two to seven years. For a quick view, you can check out the timeline, but here we'll go into depth of past El Ninos and the effects they have had. The earliest records we have of El Nino are from 1567, but we can guess that earlier civilizations dealt with the same phenomenon.
The Naming
Peruvian sailors had to deal with the change in temperature of the water that affected the food change. Since this reversal of the water flow usually peaked around the Christian Christmas holiday, these sailors named it "El Nino" meaning "the Christ Child" in Spanish.
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Sir Gilbert
At the turn of this century it was believed that this strange phenomenon occurred independently of any other weather patterns. A British scientist, Sir Gilbert Walker, studied monsoons in India and was assigned to try and predict these devastating monsoons. When studying world weather records, he noticed the patterns in rainfall in South America and connected them with changes in ocean temperatures. He also noticed that barometer readings at stations on the eastern and western sides of the Pacific were connected. He found that when the pressure rises in the east, it usually falls in the west, and vice versa. From this he saw that Asian monsoons were linked to drought in Australia, Indonesia, India, and parts of Africa and to mild winters in western Canada.
Without any proof, Walker was basically ignored. However, he maintained that the wind patterns would show his connections if they were routinely observed. He was right.
Back to TopBjerknes Is Heard
Fifty years later, a Norwegian meteorologist Jacob Bjerknes pointed out the connection between unusually warm sea-surface temperatures and the weak easterlies and heavy rainfall that accompany low-index conditions. His discovery led to the recognition that El Nino and the Southern Oscillation are connected-which is sometimes referred to as ENSO.
Back to TopQuick Facts
- 2,200 B.C.: There was a massive drought, which may have been caused by an El Niņo. This was found when Dr. Lonnie Thompson recovered a core from a glacier in an Andean mountain in 1993 and determined the year of the drought.
- 1000 A.D.: An unusually large El Niņo year, which can be seen by the similar growth patterns of trees in Arizona and Santiago, Chile.
- 1500: Some time around the year 1500, eighty people were sacrificed to the Incas. Recently the burial pit was excavated and the evidence when put together showed that the Incas were trying to appease an angry sea god because of a strong El Niņo.
- 1567: The first written records of El Niņo are made in Peru. Some historians think that Pizarro, who brought down the Incan empire, might not have succeeded without El Niņo. Instead of the normal arid climate, Peru had rain which grew food for the conquesting horses.
- 1600-1650: El Niņo used to be half as frequent as it is today during this period, but nobody knows why. Scientists discovered this fact by x-raying coral cores in the Galapagos Islands.
- 1835: The only hurricane ever recorded struck Los Angeles on August 23, demolishing settlements there. Tree rings and lake sediments suggest that this was an El Niņo year.
- 1899-1900: A monsoon failure in India caused a famine. This led to Sir Gilbert Walker's investigation into the phenomenon in 1904.
- 1976-77: This El Nino spread severe cold over the eastern United States, and drought in the west. The Polar regions of the world turned so cold that bears didn't hibernate that winter, and 85 percent of the ground was covered with snow during January 1977. In Miami, Florida, there were reports of snow flurries, and in Buffalo, New York, snow drifts were two stories high. Can you say cold?
- 1982-83: In North America during this El Nino, there was very strange weather, while Australia suffered from a terrible drought and devastating bushfires. The countries on the edge of the Sahel Desert suffered from major drought, and the monsoons failed in the Indian Ocean. Total damages ranged from $8 billion to $13 billion, and 2,000 lives were lost.
- 1990-95: This El Nino wasn't known for its harshness, but for the length. This was the longest recorded El Nino.