Currents of Change

Every year, extreme climatic problems occur around the globe, with droughts in some places and floods in others. Recently, we have come to recognise that some of these widely dispersed climatic extremes might have a common origin in the periodic warming of sea surface water in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. A century ago, Peruvian fishermen connected this appearance of warm water every December to changes in fish numbers and christened it 'El Niño', the Spanish term for the Christ Child. In some years, El Niño lingers, and seems to be connected with droughts in Australia, Brazil or India, reduced incidence of tropical hurricanes on the east coast of the US, and floods in Peru. Currents of Change explains in simple terms what El Niño is, how its effects might be forecast and its far reaching impacts on all of us.