Okay, so what is El Niño really like?
The phenomenon's effects on the weather are well known, but no one really knows what makes "the boy" himself tick. Researchers say they still don't have the key data they need to figure out what causes the phenomenon.
To change that, a new program from the Department of Energy has established three data-collection points around the world. The stations will document what causes the plume of unusually warm water that extends like a long finger off the west coast of South America.
"The most important factors in regulating the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth and escaping into space are clouds and water vapor," said Bill Clements, program manager at the Tropical Western Pacific Program Office at the DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory, which will coordinate data collection in the western Pacific Ocean.
"If you can't get those right in the models, then you can't tell about other factors. This makes it difficult to accurately figure out the impact of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases."
The three global collection centers are located in the western Pacific, on Alaska's North Slope, and across "tornado alley" on the US Southern Great Plains. Two of the three field sites for the Pacific Ocean center are already operational. A third, planned for Kiritimati Island, is expected to become operational in 2000.
El Niño causes periodic changes in the east-west gradients of ocean and atmospheric conditions, and researchers expect to find tellingly divergent climatic behavior at each observation site. The program will focus primarily on measurement of solar and terrestrial radiation and cloud processes.
El Niño and its sister phenomenon, La Niña, are the two components of the "Southern Oscillation." In an El Niño, warm waters in the Pacific go east, causing weather changes worldwide. La Niña occurs when the warm waters move back toward the west.
Changes between El Niño and La Niña occur periodically, but no one knows precisely why.
The data will also contribute to understanding other weather phenomena, Los Alamos Lab officials said, as well as the impact of human activities on climate.
The data-collection sites are part of the Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program, which is improving computer models' ability to predict global climate change.
