GAIA

El Niño trumps Climate Change

The Globe and Mail, November 19, 2016,  A8-A9 published a two page spread with close up photos of the devastation and death of 80% of the  coral in the massive reef on Kiritimasti (Christmas Isand) -- located in the dead centre of the Pacific Ocean.

Studied for years by researchers from the University of Victoria and others, the current devastation is blamed by the scientists on – are you ready for this – the super El Niño of 2015-16 of which I have written previously.

The killing off and bleaching of most of this massive coral atoll has been blamed squarely on "heat stress", as  water temperatures rose by 2.5*C, and excessive rainfall: all due to El Niño.

While the decline of the reef in also attributed in part to climate change, the researchers have been able to take samples and found El Niño’s rhythmic dips and surges are the primary cause of coral reef devastation, and subsequent gradual regrowth -- and it has affected the area for 7,000 years.

So El Niño is no new phenomenon though ignored until the 20^th century outside of the fisherman and villagers of South America’s upper west coast which is its centre and source.

Supposedly, El Niño is the result of weaker Easterly Trade Winds allowing the sun heated Equatorial zone to stay warmer.  Its twin opposite, La Nina is considered the result of extra strong Easterly winds which pull up colder water from the ocean bottom making the Pacific waters near the surface 3 to 5*C cooler. (See for this explanation http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/what-is-la-nina.php.)

But  some 30 years ago, when I first learned of El Nino (and La Nina),  I told my high school students it is probably the result of deep, underwater volcanic activity, which, just like land based volcanoes. erupt periodically in surges of varying intensity and spew forth molten lava which  transfers heat to the surrounding waters as it cools.  

Hawaii, for instance, is one such volcanic ‘outgrowth’ as deep ocean lava emitted over centuries built up into solid stone thanks to heat transfer to the adjoining waters.  And today, still active submersed volcanoes around Hawaii ‘grow’ by transferring heat to the surrounding waters to cool their lava build up.

This, I suggest, is the source of recurring and irregular surges of El Niño, which will be with us for many centuries to come.

As for La Nina, the cooling ocean occurs when those volcanoes are dormant and allow the waters to stay cool as well.

Dr. Robert Ballard, the great investigator of the ocean deep (and discovered of the Titanic) in his TV documentaries argues that the oceans of the world are poorly understood.

Their influence on human life above the waves is far greater than we imagine.