NewsHour Coverage
September 9, 1997
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Outside Links
The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center page on El Niño.
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Vivian Neely of Baton Rouge, LA, asks:
Are the results of the last great El Niño known? 150 years ago, is
suggested as the last one this large. Is that fact or guesstimate? Where
does that figure come from.
Dr. Robert E. Livezey of the National Weather Service responds:
Dear Ms. Neely,
Many oceanographers and climatologists like to point to 1982-83 as
a "record" El Niño episode. In many respects (until now) it was the
strongest either directly observed in the last 60 or so years or
indirectly over the last 120 or so years. I'm not sure what the source
for suggesting an event around 1850 was as strong or stronger than some of
the modern ones. It would be difficult to confirm this because the lion's
share of the evidence would be in the form of documentation of effects of
El Niño and not the sea temperatures themselves.
Incidentally, in some respects that are of importance to how
strongly El Niño effects North America,the 1982-83 episode has been
exceeded a number of times in the last 30 years. I'm specifically
referring to the sea surface temperatures in the central equatorial
Pacific. These experience smaller increases during El Niños than the more
impressive jumps much further to the east, but may actually have more of
an impact on the global atmosphere.
How does the National Weather Service model El Niño?
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