The effects of El Niño are not neces-sarily all bad, or at least not bad for every-one. Cyclone activity was down in HongKong and the Philippines, like hurricanesin the Caribbean. Farmers lucky enoughto escape El Niño’s wrath enjoyed higherprices for their crops. In Chile and thesouthwestern United States, heavy rainsfilled dams and replenished water sup-plies. Heavy snowfall brought great ski-ing, to the delight of skiers and profit of resort owners and employees. Desertsbloomed when the rains brought spectac-ular displays of wildflowers. Indeed, ElNiño’s periodic soakings may be a vitalpart of desert ecology. El Niño brought arelatively mild winter to much of thenorthern United States and Europe, andmillions of dollars of savings on heatingbills. While the normal fisheries in Perúand Chile crash during severe El Niñoevents, warm-water species like dolphinfish and tunas appear in record numbers.Salmon fishers in Oregon even caughtstriped marlin, normally confined to thesubtropics. The effects of ENSO are harmfulnot so much in and of themselves as be-cause they are extreme changes in thenormal pattern. Heavy rains where suchrains are rare may cause floods, while thelack of heavy rain causes drought andfamine in places that depend on it. In-deed, scientists now realize that El Niñois not really an abnormal occurrence, butsimply one extreme of a regular weathercycle.
La Niña,
the other extreme, brings weather conditions that are roughly theopposite of El Niño’s. Places that experi-ence drought during El Niño, for exam-ple, can expect wet weather during LaNiña years. After a mild hurricane seasonduring the 1997–98 El Niño, Central America and the Caribbean suffered dev-astating hurricanes in the La Niña thatfollowed. Another major cycle, the North Atlantic Oscillation, has been found toprofoundly influence Europe’s weather.Estimates of loss and damages fromthe record-breaking El Niño of 1997–98range upward of $20 billion, but it couldhave been much worse. Because scientistscould predict El Niño the world had ad- vance warning and time to prepare. Au-thorities in many countries intensifiedtheir disaster preparedness efforts andbuilt up food reserves. Industry and espe-cially agriculture adjusted their planning.Cattle ranchers in Australia, for example,reduced their herds, cutting the lossesfrom the subsequent drought. In south-ern Africa farmers cut back their normalcrop of corn and planted more drought-resistant plants. Every El Niño is differ-ent, however, and in a given place theexact effects are hard to predict. In1997–98, for example, authorities in partsof East Africa expected drought based onpast El Niños. Instead, they had terriblefloods. Nonetheless, the scientific ability to predict when El Niño is on the way has produced huge benefits for society. As profound as the effects of ElNiño are, it is important to recognize thatnot every unusual occurrence or spell of bad weather is caused by El Niño. Dur-ing the 1997–98 event, some reportsblamed El Niño not for anything to do with the weather, but for everything frompolitical scandal to the Super Bowl win-ner! Weather patterns are naturally vari-able, and unusual weather sometimeshappens whether there is an El Niñoaround or not. A little bit of skepticism wouldn’t hurt the next time you hear thatsomething must be caused by El Niño