|
  |
|
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
El Niņo appears to be weakening
CAMP SPRINGS, Maryland (CNN) -- The El Niņo weather phenomenon, which has influenced the 2002 Atlantic hurricane season and U.S. fall and winter weather, appears to be weakening, scientists said Thursday. "The 2002-2003 El Niņo has had less punch than its 1982-83 and 1997-98 predecessors," said Jim Laver, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center. Scientists said El Niņo was weakening in January and will continue to weaken through April. The United States is expected to feel the impact of El Niņo through early spring. The prediction is based on recent evolution of the Pacific Ocean temperatures near the equator, together with statistical and coupled model forecasts, scientists said. Near-normal sea surface temperatures should return to the equatorial Pacific during May through October. "Most of the U.S. has experienced El Niņo's typical impacts," Laver said. The 1997-98 El Niņo's caused billions of dollars in storm damage on the U.S. West Coast and triggered catastrophic drought-related fires in Indonesia and Brazil. "El Niņo" is the name given to this weather phenomenon centuries ago by Peruvian fishermen, who often noted warming waters and a change in their fish catch in certain years around Christmas -- the celebration of the birth of el Niņo -- the Christ child. In recent decades scientists linked the change in mid-Pacific ocean temperatures to weather phenomenon worldwide.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
