History of the phenomenon el nino

The first mention of the term "El Niño" to refer to climate occurs in 1892, when Captain Camilo Carrillo told the Geographical society congress in Lima that Peruvian sailors named the warm northerly current "El Niño" because it was most noticeable around Christmas. However even before then the phenomenon was of interest because of its effects on biological productivity, with its effects on the guano industry.

Normal conditions along the west Peruvian coast are a cold southerly current (the Peru current) with upwelling water; the upwelling nutrients lead to great oceanic productivity; the cold currents leads to very dry conditions on land. Similar conditions exist elsewhere (California current; Benguela current off South Africa). Thus the replacement of this with warmer northerly water leads to lower biological productivity in the ocean, and more rainfall - often flooding - on land; the connection with flooding was reported in 1895 by Pezet and Eguiguren.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century there was much interest in forecasting climate anomalies (for food production) in India and Australia. Charles Todd, in 1893, suggested that droughts in India and Australia tended to occur at the same time; Norman Lockyer noted the same in 1904. In 1924 Gilbert Walker (for whom the Walker circulation is named) first coined the term "Southern Oscillation".

For most of the twentieth century, El Niño was thought of as a largely local phenomenon.

The major 1982-3 El Niño lead to an upsurge of interest from the scientific community.

The 1998 El Nino event caused an estimated 16% of the world’s reef systems to die. Since then, mass coral bleaching has become common worldwide, with all regions having suffered ‘severe bleaching’.

ENSO conditions seem to have occurred at every two to seven years for at least the past 300 years, but most of them have been weak.

Major ENSO events have occurred in the years 1790-93, 1828, 1876-78, 1891, 1925-26, 1982-83, and 1997-98.

Recent El Niños have occurred in 1986-1987, 1991-1992, 1993, 1994, 1997-1998, 2002-2003, 2004-2005 and 2006-2007.

The El Niño of 1997 - 1998 was particularly strong and brought the phenomenon to worldwide attention. The event temporarilly warmed air temperature by 3°F, compared to the usual increase of 0.5°F associated with El Niño events. The period from 1990-1994 was unusual in that El Niños have rarely occurred in such rapid succession (but were generally weak). There is some debate as to whether global warming increases the intensity and/or frequency of El Niño episodes. (see also the ENSO and Global Warming section above).

but this el nino owned the blog are way above all that, i just another ordinary guy, looking dan trying to do something that could change the world a little bit.