What the heck is El Niño, anyway?

In case you hadn’t heard, El Niño is back in the news, and this time it’s pushing global temperatures to the 1.5-degree climate threshold, giving us a sneak preview of a world scorched by global warming. But when it comes to El Niño, the first question on people’s minds is usually…wait…what the heck is El Niño again?

Well, today on Outside/In we’ve got answers. Plus, we ask how to tell if extreme weather events are caused by climate change or by El Niño, and consider what this El Niño can tell us about our climate future.

Featuring Kim Cobb, Emily Becker, and Ángel Muñoz.

 

SUPPORT

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Submit a question to our Outside/Inbox. We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

 

LINKS

Read Kim Cobb’s 2016 article, A bittersweet victory for an El Niño chaser – Cobb explains how her research on corals gives us a surprisingly accurate history of El Niño events going back as far as 7,000 years ago.

The National Weather Service for the UK has a great video explainer of El Nino, as well as over a hundred other short videos on their YouTube channel explaining various weather and climate phenomena like jet streams, global circulation, and the Coriolis effect.

For more science-talk on El Nino, check out the ENSO Blog, where climate scientist Emily Becker is a lead writer.

 

CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi
Reported and produced by Felix Poon
Edited by Taylor Quimby with help from Justine Paradis and Nate Hegyi.
Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer
Special thanks to Jeongyoon Han for playing the violin, and Michael Prentky for the timpani recording.
Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Walt Adams, and Brightarm Orchestra.
Outside/In  is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio