Because of the powerful effects they can have on established regional weather patterns, especially with respect to rainfall, scientists have worked hard to study and predict El Ni\u00f1o events and their potential outcomes. In a release from NASA, researchers show data that enable them to distinguish the El Ni\u00f1o event of 1997 to 1998 from the El Ni\u00f1o event of 2015, revealing each weather event, while still classified as an El Ni\u00f1o, as having unique properties. <\/p>\n
Whereas the 1997 to 1998 event began with colder-than-average sea surface temperatures, the 2015 El Ni\u00f1o event began with warmer-than-average temperatures. In addition, each El Ni\u00f1o was distributed differently over the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
To examine the differences between the two El Ni\u00f1o events, scientists used information from ocean buoys, satellite images and atmospheric models. This input was used to inform the Goddard Space Flight Center\u2019s computer models of the events. <\/p>\n
Seasonal forecasts of El Ni\u00f1o behavior took 18 hours to complete and used 9 Terabytes of data. The 2015 El Ni\u00f1o model suggests that normal sea surface temperatures should return by June of 2016. <\/p>\n
Top image:\u00a0Researchers are looking into the differences between the 2015 El Ni\u00f1o and the 1997 El Ni\u00f1o. (Credit: NASA)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Because of the powerful effects they can have on established regional weather patterns, especially with respect to rainfall, scientists have worked hard to study and predict El Ni\u00f1o events and their potential outcomes. In a release from NASA, researchers show data that enable them to distinguish the El Ni\u00f1o event of 1997 to 1998 from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":24827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,44],"tags":[381,146,103,347],"class_list":["post-24831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-oceans-coasts","tag-enso","tag-nasa","tag-news-2","tag-oceans-coasts"],"remote_post_permalink":false,"remote_post_featured_image":false,"yoast_head":"\n