Ocean Cycles - El Niño and La Niña

Join Dr. Peter Carter, Paul Beckwith and Regina Valdez as they discuss and explain the El Niño Southern Oscillation, often referred to as ENSO, and its impact on weather and the trajectory of abrupt climate change.

This video was recorded on May 18th, 2022, and published on June 26th, 2022.

Some of the topics discussed:

• What is ENSO and why is it important?
• How It follows a quasi-periodic cycle. The term ‘quasi’ is used because there’s a lot of variability in the period between El Niño events which can vary anywhere between two to seven years.
• What is the Walker Circulation?
• How we are currently in an unusual 3 year long La Niña phase of the cycle.
• How it impacts global weather patterns.
• How there is a 50% chance that we’ll exceed 1.5°C in Global Average Temperature rise within the next 5 years and how this will likely be brought on by the occurrence of an El Niño event.
• How the southern hemisphere was severely impacted by the last El Niño that occurred in 2015-2016. How there is a correlation between this event and an observed rate of increase in the CO2 atmospheric concentration.
• Given the current emissions trajectory that we’re on, the frequency of El Niño events could double.
• and more. . .

Links:

• What are El Niño and La Niña?

• Walker Circulation

• Global warming: Earth has 50% chance of exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius in next 5 years, scientists say

• 2014–2016 El Niño event

• Definition of Extreme El Niño and Its Impact on Projected Increase in Extreme El Niño Frequency

• What is the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in a nutshell?

Regular Panelists:

• Dr. Peter Carter - MD, Expert IPCC Reviewer and the director of the Climate Emergency Institute

• Paul Beckwith - Climate Systems Scientist. Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Paleoclimatology Laboratory as well as at Carleton University

• Regina Valdez - Program Director, Climate Reality Project, NYC. GreenFaith Fellow and LEED Green Associate

Video Production:

• Charles Gregoire – Climate Reality Leader, Electrical Engineer, Webmaster and IT prime for FacingFuture.Earth and the Climate Emergency Forum

• Heidi Brault - Climate Reality Leader, BA(Psychology), Library & Information Technician Diploma - Video production and website assistant - Organizer and convener, Metadata technician, COP26 Team Lead for FacingFuture.Earth and the Climate Emergency Forum.

Attributions:

Background Music:

• Title: Through the City II
• Author: Crowander
• Source: Free Music Archive
• License: BY-NC 4.0

Image and Video:

• Image and Video Attributions