Published in ERW, 18 Oct 2012
The last decade of the 20th century saw a major change in the relationship between the tropical and extra-tropical climate, according to scientists in the US and Taiwan. The discovery suggests that the increasing influence of the extra-tropical atmosphere on the tropical Pacific Ocean has driven the emergence of El Niño events in the central Pacific.
In recent years one of the most dramatic phenomena associated with climate change has been the shift of El Niño – a climate oscillation that occurs roughly every five years – from the east to the central Pacific. Scientists have begun to notice impacts resulting from the shift on weather patterns, marine biology and other parts of the ecosystem, yet the cause of the shift itself has been unknown. […]
The rest of this article is available here.