wildfires droughts floods extreme storms as the world's climate becomes more volatile you may have heard people mention El Nino or La Nina El Nino El Nino El Nino weather event has begun what are they and how do they impact the weather events we see across the globe this is de-complicated what are El Nino and La Nina weather events El Nino and La Nina are naturally occurring climate phenomena that have been going for thousands of years they represent the different phases of a large Oceanic weather cycle known as the El Nino Southern oscillation so the natural occurring climate patterns that happen in the Eastern Pacific so just off the coast of Peru and the El Nino is when you get a warming phase so the ocean sea surface temperatures are higher than they normally would be and the La Nina is the opposite we get a cool limb getting a quelling of cool currents coming to the surface and they typically kind of oscillate between the two about every two to seven years on average and then typically lasts between about nine to 12 months for each one in 1892 Peruvian fishermen first noticed the phenomenon as the arrival of particularly warm water that they were not accustomed to on the surface the occurrence was named El Nino by Spanish settlers in South America meaning little boy or Christ child due to happening around Christmas with La Nina translating to the Guff today El Nino describes more than just the natural warming of Seaside Waters it now represents erratic and unpredictable climate change events as part of the larger Enzo cycle which leads to extreme weather patterns across the globe I'll do El Nino and La Nina events occur the natural state of the Pacific Ocean is dominated by powerful winds blowing west across the tropical Pacific region driving warmer water towards the Western Pacific Ocean and the borders of Oceana and Asia this process is so delicate that it impacts the very Global Climate leading to increased rainfall across Oceana and keeping the air along the coast of South America dry the strongest one I think we can go back to 2015 and 2016 and that had a big impact particularly during 2016 because that was our hottest year on record global temperatures were at the highest that we've ever recorded and so as we go into this El Nino phase I guess all eyes are on what the global temperatures are going to do over the next 12 months or so what are the effects of an El Nino event El Nino creates severe changes in the globe's climate ecosystems and cultures normally in the Pacific Ocean Warm Winds lead to heating ocean temperatures that trigger cooler water to rise to the surface on coasts that border South America this Sudden Change affects everything from agriculture to the Aquatic food chain and dominoes to impact hundreds of species and The Wider communities at Large they have quite a big impact on uh local weather so for example in an El Nino air phase that warming in the Eastern Pacific that creates energy uh for a lot more rainfall to happen in um the western side of South America also the Western South West of the US so it's places like California you get a lot more rainfall on the opposite side of the Pacific they get a much drier events so we often see drought conditions happening in Australia the wildfires uh start to occur as well because of those drought conditions what they do though where they work with the kind of global warming that we're seeing so when we get a la nina event is what we've had over the last two or three years actually that suppresses those global temperatures a little bit it's a little bit like turning the thermostat down on your heating system but when we get the El Nino phase it's like turning the thermostat up so we've seen global temperatures going up because of climate change you add in that natural climate variation of El Nino and turn that thermostat up another notch or two those temperatures are going to rise so the key really is is adapting to that being able to you know survive in those kind of strong heat conditions and we'll see heat waves more regularly around the world because of climate change but with the El Nino phase coming in this year and probably next year as well we're going to see more Heatwave events so we have to be able to adapt to those that heat to be able to manage when we get those heat events anywhere in the world foreign