The Effects of El Nino on Hurricanes

This topic submitted by Kimberly Carvey, Diana Maikut, Joel Lear ( Carveykn@muohio.edu ) on 5/4/04 .

Global Climate Change -Western Program-Miami University

Seventy five percent of the surface of our world is covered by water; at its deepest the water is about 36,000 feet thick. One may think that because of this massive amount of water, that the oceans are a stable unchanging entity. For the most part this is true, but the surface of the ocean changes much more readily than the deep ocean and it is the changes in the surface that are most important when discussing present day weather and climate patterns.

This proposal concerns oceanic surface temperature changes in the equatorial regions of the pacific and their effect on tropical storm patterns around the world. The changes in temperature cover an immense area from the west coast of South America across the Pacific to Indonesia. These changes are cyclic, hence called the El Nino Southern Oscillation (referred to as ENSO), and contain three basic phases:

Ą El Nino, or warm surface water phase
Ą La Nina, or cool surface water phase
Ą Intermittent or normal phase when temperatures and conditions are normal

To quantify how the ENSO affects weather across the globe, data from tropical storms, hurricanes and typhoons during each ENSO phase will be compiled and compared. Data collected may include but will not be limited to pressure, wind speed, duration, size, and tidal surge of specific storms and number of storms during each season. The hurricane data will be collected and compared to the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) or sea surface temperatures (SST), which is used to measure the relative strengths of El Nino and La Nina.

Expand your knowledge on El Nino and Hurricanes!

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