Expect this fall and winter to be warmer than usual, Pitt environmental science professors advise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A recurring climate pattern that affects sea surface temperatures, called El Ni\u00f1o, is set to cause higher-than-average temperatures soon. Pitt environmental science professors warn of a strong El Ni\u00f1o this year, in line with a broader pattern of the climate event causing increasingly warm temperatures. While its impact on Pittsburgh is yet to be determined, experts anticipate an atypically warm and dry winter for the region.<\/p>\n
Occurring every two to seven years, El Ni\u00f1o occurs when trade winds<\/a> slow, preventing the Pacific Ocean from its typical cycle of blowing warm water from the Eastern Pacific to the Western Pacific. Because the wind doesn\u2019t push as hard across the ocean during the El Ni\u00f1o phase, warm water accumulates in the eastern Pacific instead of where it usually accumulates on the Western side. This causes sea surface temperatures to rise above normal.\u00a0<\/p>\n Abigail Carroll, a teaching assistant professor of geology and environmental science, said scientists examine a central area in the tropical Pacific Ocean called the Ni\u00f1o 3.4 rectangle<\/a> to predict El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s strength by tracking its temperature swings.<\/p>\n During the El Ni\u00f1o phase, the 3.4 area is usually the warmest in the Pacific Ocean and a key indicator of how drastic El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s effects will be for the rest of the world.<\/p>\n \u201cNi\u00f1o 3.4 has gotten, as of July, the second warmest it has ever been in our El Ni\u00f1o record, which suggests it\u2019s only going to get warmer, and we are set up for a super strong El Ni\u00f1o come this late fall, early winter,\u201d Carroll said.<\/p>\n Carroll said there isn\u2019t enough data to know how climate change could affect future El Ni\u00f1os, with records of El Ni\u00f1os only dating back to the 1950s<\/a> despite them occurring for thousands of years. However, scientists do know that the El Ni\u00f1o events have been getting warmer<\/a> with each occurrence.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Carroll, El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s opposite weather pattern that causes colder temperatures, called La Ni\u00f1a, have recently caused warmer temperatures than El Ni\u00f1os did 20-30 years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n Carroll said climate change has caused oceans to reach the same temperature as the Ni\u00f1o 3.4, which sometimes make El Ni\u00f1o years less powerful. She said that when the difference between ocean temperatures and the Nino 3.4 temperature is more extreme, the impacts of El Ni\u00f1o tend to be more extreme.<\/p>\n Carroll said El Ni\u00f1o has not yet gone into effect, and that recent heatwaves<\/a> and strong thunderstorms<\/a> in the Pittsburgh area are more attributable to climate change than El Ni\u00f1o.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,<\/a> El Ni\u00f1os tend to push the jet stream that moves storms across the continental U.S. south of its typical position, leading to below-average snowfall in the northern half of the country. Historically, this has meant drier and warmer winters in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n According to Carroll, it\u2019s hard to tell exactly how El Ni\u00f1o will affect Pittsburgh. She said scientists can only average the probability of events by comparing data sets from past El Ni\u00f1o events. These data sets have tended to follow devastating effects of El Ni\u00f1o such as drought and floods.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are trends El Ni\u00f1o tends to follow in terms of cascading events we see in different regions across the world, but sometimes it doesn\u2019t do what we expect,\u201d Carroll said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s hard to look at what El Ni\u00f1os have done in Pittsburgh in the past and say it\u2019s definitely going to happen this time and be stronger, but we can put odds on it.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark Abbott, a professor of geology and environmental science, said that El Ni\u00f1o typically causes areas closer to the eastern Pacific Ocean to experience more rainfall than normal, while areas like Australia that are closer to the western Pacific Ocean experience drier weather. These atypical weather patterns can have consequential effects.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last [El Ni\u00f1o<\/a>] caused big forest fires all across Australia<\/a>,\u201d Abbott said.<\/p>\n Abbott added El Ni\u00f1o can have a large ecological impact by affecting farmers and wildlife. He said warmer ocean waters can shift fish populations to irregular areas, and unpredictable temperatures can stagnate crop output.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o was really first identified by fishermen who noticed that water temperature changed and the fish were different,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cIf you\u2019re a farmer, you want reliable conditions so you can plan your crops, and it doesn\u2019t help if your climate is more extreme.\u201d<\/p>\n Abbott said what we know about the future of El Ni\u00f1o is still uncertain, and that we\u2019re entering a world where there\u2019s no analog, which is measurable and observational data of Earth\u2019s climate system.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not something that\u2019s easily attainable by sampling,\u201d Abbott said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Expect this fall and winter to be warmer than usual, Pitt environmental science professors advise.\u00a0 A recurring climate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-283720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}