Jun 21, 2016 02:48 AM
http://nautil.us/blog/el-nio-has-ended-k...ilizations
EXCERPT: [...] What Louis could not have known was that one root of his “misfortunes” was not any one of his subjects. It was El Niño, the climatic fluctuation that has sown misfortune for humankind for millennia. Today, as global temperatures rise, El Niño events will likely become more dramatic—causing longer, drier droughts, extreme floods, and more unpredictable weather. Stories of how El Niño shaped history are thus more than mere curiosities, says Brian Fagan, author of Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Niño and the Fate of Civilizations.
“You cannot study climate change without looking at human experience of climate in the past,” he says. We might live in a world of billions more people, but past El Niños can still offer insights into human behavior. “They won’t tell you how to do something,” Fagan says, “but they can give you precedents for how you might.”
El Niño is one stage of a much larger cycle in Pacific Ocean weather patterns—a cycle known as the El Niño-Sothern Oscillation, or ENSO. “El Niño” happens when westerly trade winds cross the Pacific and weaken; air pressures plummet in the eastern Pacific as a result, and warm water builds up around the Americas. The force and direction of the Pacific winds have worldwide impacts, in ways that are still not completely understood. “Each El Niño episode,” according to NASA’s website, “has a unique timing and variations in impacts...”
EXCERPT: [...] What Louis could not have known was that one root of his “misfortunes” was not any one of his subjects. It was El Niño, the climatic fluctuation that has sown misfortune for humankind for millennia. Today, as global temperatures rise, El Niño events will likely become more dramatic—causing longer, drier droughts, extreme floods, and more unpredictable weather. Stories of how El Niño shaped history are thus more than mere curiosities, says Brian Fagan, author of Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Niño and the Fate of Civilizations.
“You cannot study climate change without looking at human experience of climate in the past,” he says. We might live in a world of billions more people, but past El Niños can still offer insights into human behavior. “They won’t tell you how to do something,” Fagan says, “but they can give you precedents for how you might.”
El Niño is one stage of a much larger cycle in Pacific Ocean weather patterns—a cycle known as the El Niño-Sothern Oscillation, or ENSO. “El Niño” happens when westerly trade winds cross the Pacific and weaken; air pressures plummet in the eastern Pacific as a result, and warm water builds up around the Americas. The force and direction of the Pacific winds have worldwide impacts, in ways that are still not completely understood. “Each El Niño episode,” according to NASA’s website, “has a unique timing and variations in impacts...”