Word: weathers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Still, why should a regional phenomenon affect weather around the world? The reason, say scientists, is the extra heat. Like fresh coal tossed on a fire, it creates more and larger storms. And as the warm water spreads into the central and eastern Pacific, these storms inevitably follow in its path, moving the tropical storm belt from one part of the Pacific to another. The rearrangement has reverberations throughout the atmosphere, causing droughts in places as far-flung as northeastern Brazil, southern Africa and Australia, while other regions, from California to Cuba, can be hit by torrential rains. These effects...
...unleash meteorological havoc in the months to come. The tropical storms spawning off Mexico, the heavy downpours that have drenched Chile and Peru, the worrisome lack of rain in Australia and Indonesia--all, say scientists, are signs that a powerful El Nino has grabbed control of the world's weather machine...
...Nino generally peaks around December, which is why Peruvian fishermen long ago gave the Christmastime weather visitor a name that in Spanish means "Christ Child." If the warming trend continues, scientists say, the incipient El Nino could pump so much heat into the ocean that average sea-surface temperatures might rise 3.5[degrees]C, or 7[degrees]F--and if this happens, the effects would be felt far into the new year. Among the disasters that would be likely to result are landslides, flash floods, droughts and crop failures. Ecuadorian cocoa producers estimate that the current El Nino could lower...
Until recently, most weather scientists paid scant attention to the periodic episodes of warm water that for countless centuries have appeared off the coast of Peru. They seemed to be a local event, one that affected mainly fish--in particular, Peru's lucrative anchovy fishery--and seabirds. Not until the early 1970s, when that fishery's collapse was accompanied by drought and crop failures around the world, did the global reach of El Nino become clear. However, it took the disastrous weather of 1982-83 to convince scientists and policymakers that the tropical Pacific merited close watching...
...Nino Southern Oscillation. Rather like a pendulum, the ENSO cycle swings between an El Nino state and its opposite, a cold-water state known as La Nina (the girl) or El Viejo (the old man). Taken as a whole, ENSO is a powerful driver of global weather patterns. In fact, say scientists, it is, besides seasonal variations caused by the earth's travels around the sun, the major cause of month-to-month variation in climate...