CONTENT

 ENSO
MECHANISM
AND ITS
EFFECT ON
MALAYSIA

 IOD
MECHANISM
AND ITS
EFFECT ON
MALAYSIA

What is ENSO and LECTURER

IOD?
Encik Saiful

Khairatunnisa binti Shamsuddin| PKM No. 2332 | 28 April 2021

 La Nina

El Nino

El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

On our planet, the majority of the heat is stored in the oceans. They retain more
easily the energy than continents and more than the atmosphere. So the
ocean plays a role as important as atmosphere on the climate. During normal
conditions in the Pacific ocean, trade winds blow west along the equator, taking warm
water from South America towards Asia. To replace that warm water, cold water rises
from the depths — a process called upwelling. Under normal conditions the
thermocline is not flat. Its depth is about 50 meters to the east and 150 to 200
meters in the western Pacific. The waters of Chile and Peru Seaboard are at a
temperature of 64,4-68°F (18-20°C). El Nino and La Nina are two opposing climate
patterns that break these normal conditions. Scientists call these phenomena the El Nino-
Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. El Nino and La Nina can both have global impacts on
weather, wildfires, ecosystems, and economies. Episodes of El Nino and La Nina typically
last nine to 12 months, but can sometimes last for years. El Nino and La Nina events occur
every two to seven years, on average, but they don’t occur on a regular schedule.
Generally, El Nino occurs more frequently than La Nina.

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EL NINO

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EL NINO MODOKI
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La Niña

La Nina means Little Girl in Spanish. La Nina is also sometimes called El Viejo, anti-El
Nino, or simply "a cold event." La Nina has the opposite effect of El Nino. During La Nina
events, trade winds are even stronger than usual, pushing more warm water toward Asia.
Off the west coast of the Americas, upwelling increases, bringing cold, nutrient-rich water
to the surface. These cold waters in the Pacific push the jet stream northward. This tends
to lead to drought in the southern U.S. and heavy rains and flooding in the Pacific
Northwest and Canada. During a La Nina year, winter temperatures are warmer than
normal in the South and cooler than normal in the North. La Nina can also lead to a more
severe hurricane season. La Nina causes the jet stream to move northward and to weaken
over the eastern Pacific. During La Nina winters, the South sees warmer and drier
conditions than usual. The North and Canada tend to be wetter and colder. During La
Nina, waters off the Pacific coast are colder and contain more nutrients than usual. This
environment supports more marine life and attracts more cold-water species, like squid
and salmon, to places like the California coast. During a La Niña event, the Walker
Circulation intensifies with greater convection over the western Pacific and stronger trade
winds. As the trade winds strengthen, the pool of warmer water is confined to the far
western tropical Pacific, resulting in warmer than usual sea surface temperatures in the
region north of Australia. Sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern tropical
Pacific Ocean become cooler than usual and the thermocline moves closer to the surface –
cool waters from the deep ocean are drawn to the surface as upwelling strengthens.

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Convection and hence cloudiness over the region north of Australia increases as stronger
winds provide more moisture to the overlying atmosphere and the Walker Circulation
intensifies. This strengthens the Australian monsoon and, if the conditions are right,
directs increased humidity and rainfall inland over Australia. La Niña events are
associated with increased rainfall over much of northern and eastern Australia. Parts of
northern and central Australia tend to feel the impacts of La Niña more than they feel the
impacts of El Niño.

La Niña Modoki
Since 2007 a new type of La Niña was discovered from analysis of a Japanese team that
have named it La Niña Modoki in Japanese. It is distinguished from the classic La Niña by
its specific impact on the global atmospheric circulation. Traditionally, the classic La Niña
is associated with the cooling in the eastern tropical Pacific (Niño 1+2 et 3). However,
during La Niña Modoki the anomaly of the sea surface temperature (SST) in the eastern
Pacific isn't affected by cooling but by warming just like western equatorial Pacific, while a
cold anomaly affects the central equatorial Pacific (Niño 3.4). These zonal gradients of SST
result in an anomaly in circulation of two Walker cells on the tropical Pacific, with a
humid region in the Eastern and the Western Pacific. The thermocline doesn't switch the
same way as during the classical La Niña because this one raises at the Eastern Equatorial
Pacific to sink at the West while during its cousin the thermocline raises at the center of
equatorial Pacific Ocean and sinks at each end of the Pacific.

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During the classic La Niña, the West Coast of the United States is dry but with La Niña
Modoki it is rather humid. While during the Classic La Niña there is a significant increase
in rainfall over the north and south of Australia, that the Modoki event seems to lead to a
large-scale increase in the precipitations in the northwest and North Australia. India also
would be affected by more precipitations with this second type of La Niña.

Effect On Malaysia
 During December–January–February (DJF), strong (moderate) La Niña caused a
significant decrease (increase) in wet precipitation extremes over the Peninsular
Malaysia. This was related to the broadening (narrowing and westward
displacement) of the anomalous cyclonic circulation over the western north Pacific
during strong (moderate) La Niña. Hence, the likelihood for widespread flooding
over the east coast of the Peninsular Malaysia during DJF increases during
moderate but not during strong La Niña events. Diagram below shows the current
status of ENSO in Malaysia.

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PAGE 7