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Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences pp 1–2Cite as

El Niño (Southern Oscillation)

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Synonyms

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) warm event

Antonym

La Niña

The term El Niño (Spanish for “the Child Christ”) was initially used by Peruvian fishermen to describe a warm-water current that periodically flows along the coast of Ecuador and Perú about Christmas time. It is an oscillation associated with the unusually large basin-wide warmings of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean that occur every few years (about 2–7 years) and change the local and regional ecology and have global impacts. The oceanic event is connected to the atmospheric component termed “Southern Oscillation.” The coupled atmosphere-ocean phenomenon is collectively known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). While El Niño refers to the warm phase of ENSO, La Niña (Spanish for “the girl”) refers to the cold phase of ENSO. See Trenberth (1997) for a review on definitions of El Niño.

An initial positive sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly intensifies due to a positive feedback first hypothesized by...

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Bibliography

  • Bjerknes, J., 1969. Atmospheric teleconnections from the equatorial pacific. Monthly Weather Review, 97, 163–172.

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  • Trenberth, K. E., 1997. The definition of El Niño. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 78, 2771–2777.

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  • Wang, C., and Picaut, J., 2004. Understanding ENSO physics – a review. In Wang, C., Xie, S. P., and Carton, J. A. (eds.), Earth’s Climate: The Ocean-Atmosphere Interaction. Washington, DC: AGU, pp. 21–48.

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  • Wang, C., Deser, C., Yu, J.-Y., DiNezio, P., Clement, A., 2012. El Niño and Southern Oscillation (ENSO): a review. In Glymn, P., Manzello, D., Enochs, I. (eds.), Coral Reefs of the Eastern Pacific. Springer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Meteorology, Freie Universität Berlin, Carl-Heinrich-Becker-Weg 6-10, 12165, Berlin, Germany

    Janina Körper

Authors
  1. Janina Körper
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Correspondence to Janina Körper .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland

    Jan Harff

  2. Institute of Geography and Geology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

    Martin Meschede

  3. Leibiniz Institute of Marine Sciences, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Sven Petersen

  4. Academy of Sciences, Humanities, and Lit c/o Helmholtz-Center for Ocean Research, Kiel, Germany

    Jörn Thiede

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Körper, J. (2014). El Niño (Southern Oscillation). In: Harff, J., Meschede, M., Petersen, S., Thiede, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_161-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_161-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6644-0

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