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Required Environmental Legislation
- Why Do I Need to Know These?
- What Are The Required Pieces of Legislation?
- Laws Involving the Disposal of Hazardous Wastes
- RCRA: Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
- CERCLA: Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
- Air & Water Protection
- Clean Air Act
- Clean Water Act
- Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)
- Biodiversity Protection
- CITES: Convention on Int’l Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna & Flora
- Endangered Species Act
- Commonly Confused International Protocols
- Montreal Protocol
- Kyoto Protocol
- Carcinogens
- Delaney Clause Of Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
Major Environmental Disasters
- Why Do I Need to Know These?
- What Are These Major Environmental Disasters?
- Unit 6 - Energy Resources - Disasters
- Chernobyl, Ukraine
- Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania
- Fukushima Daiichi Reactor, Japan
- Exxon Valdez, Alaska
- Unit 7 - Air Pollution - Disasters
- Great Smog, London
- Unit 8 - Aquatic/Terrestrial Pollution, Waste, and Toxicity - Disasters
- Bhopal, India
- Love Canal, New York
- Minamata Bay, Japan
- Unit 9 - Global Change - Disasters
- Great Barrier Coral Reef Bleaching, Australia, Pacific Ocean
✍️ Free Response Questions (FRQs)
🏜 Unit 1: The Living World: Ecosystems
🐠 Unit 2: The Living World: Biodiversity
👪 Unit 3: Populations
3.0Unit 3 Overview: Populations
- ⚡ Key Terms
- 3.1 Generalist and Specialist Species
- 3.2 K Selected and r selected species
- 3.3 Survivorship curves
- 3.4 Carrying Capacity
- 3.5 Population Growth and Resource Availability
- 3.6 Age Structure Diagrams
- 3.7 Total fertility rate
- 3.8 Human Population Dynamics
- 3.9 Demographic Transition
- ⚡ Quick Study - Key Terms
🌏 Unit 4: Earth Systems and Resources
🏖 Unit 5: Land and Water Use
⚡️ Unit 6: Energy Resources and Consumption
💨 Unit 7: Atmospheric Pollution
♻️ Unit 8: Aquatic and Terrestrial Pollution
🔥 Unit 9: Global Change
🧐 Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)
4.9 El Niño and La Niña
#elniño
#weather
#climate
#storm
#thermocline
⏱️ 2 min read
written by
cody williams
May 1, 2020
El Niño
An El Niño is a warming of the Pacific Ocean between South America and Papua New Guinea. This occurs when the trade winds in that region weaken causing warm water to move closer to the west coast of South America and the thermocline to move deeper. This is shown in the image below.
Image Courtesy of Wikimedia
The thermocline is the boundary between warmer surface water and colder deep water.
These conditions result in more precipitation in the western United States but allow for a cooler winter for the southeastern US. Typically, with an el niño, you will see warmer conditions.
La Niña
When a La Niña occurs, it is a cooling of the Pacific Ocean between Papua New Guinea and South America. This is the opposite of an el niño. The formation of a la niña begins when the trade winds strengthen causing warm surface water to be pushed further away from the west coast of South America. This allows for cool deeper water to rise through upwelling.
This causes the thermocline to move up.
The results of a la niña are almost the opposite of an el niño. Instead of generally rising temperatures, we see cooler temperatures as well as wet conditions. However, in the southeastern US, we see the opposite, warmer and drier conditions.
Greater Environmental Impacts
An el niño can have impacts that are shown around the world. First, when the ocean warms, different marine species may have to leave because they are unable to live in warm conditions. Furthermore, these temperatures changes may impact the migration of marine birds and species overall.
On a more global scale, a warmer ocean won’t be able to absorb as much CO2 leaving it in the atmosphere. As for the weather, flooding and drought can result from precipitation changes caused by these temperature changes in the Pacific.
🎥 Watch: AP Environmental Science - Earth's Seasons and Climate
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