El Niño research involves a process that scientists are monitoring more closely than ever before.
It is located deep beneath the waters between Indonesia and Australia.
Heat is carried far from its source. This occurs before we can predict an extreme climate-related event.
Researchers believe this phenomenon is an essential part of one of Earth’s largest weather patterns.
What is this underwater feature, and how does it help fuel El Niño?
A signal crossing the Pacific before anyone notices
Although the Pacific Ocean is constantly moving, its most dramatic movements occur miles below the surface.
Scientists have been researching how heat moves through the world’s oceans for decades.
Understanding these movements helps researchers understand how they affect climate-related systems.
There are several indicators that suggest an impending El Niño event.
Many of those indicators appear weeks or months before extreme weather arrives. The devastating effects are often felt in global cities, farmland, and coastal areas.
Satellite imagery and sea-level measurements are among the tools used to track unseen changes beneath the surface.
Used together, satellite imagery and measurements of sea level allow researchers to better understand these phenomena.
Nature often keeps its most powerful secrets tucked away in the deep blue ocean waters far below.
What the ocean knows before we do
El Niño is likely one of the largest influences on climate systems worldwide.
Extreme rainfall in some regions and droughts in others represent just two of its effects.
Due to its potential impact, researchers closely monitor the Pacific Ocean. They constantly search for evidence of developing changes.
According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, researchers have identified unusually high temperatures in parts of the Pacific.
Research from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been instrumental in helping us decode these ocean changes, and further investigation suggests these conditions may signal a very strong El Niño event.
Most of what creates these events takes place beneath the surface of the ocean and can only be detected via specialized equipment.
A better understanding of these shifts may allow climate models to issue earlier warnings. Earlier detection may help individuals and communities reduce potential damage.
The answer is hidden beneath the Pacific
Through their research, climate modelers determined that the unknown force behind this phenomenon is a Kelvin Wave.
It is essentially an East-moving pulse of warm water beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
These waves form as a result of either a weakening or temporary reversal of trade wind activity in that region. When this occurs, warmer waters along the coasts of Indonesia and Australia flow toward the Americas.
Every ripple deep below the surface carries signs of the weather ahead.
The hidden force helping shape El Niño
As a Kelvin Wave moves eastward, it brings a lot of heat to the western coastlines of South America. This additional heat warms both ocean temperatures and causes sea levels to increase as the flow continues.
Researchers used NASA satellites to carefully study these changes firsthand.
The data showed that these waves are often among the earliest signs of developing El Niño conditions.
They can produce indicators before the wider effects become apparent.
If such waves travel eastward for long periods, warm water can build up in the Eastern Pacific. Over time, this can eventually help to establish El Niño conditions.
This finding illustrates how an event can develop hundreds or thousands of feet beneath the ocean’s surface. It can ultimately impact vulnerable communities on every single continent.
Climate modelers will continue studying this phenomenon in hopes of improving future weather forecasts.
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