Si tu hijo es Aries es probable que haya nacido antes de lo que esperabas ya que los pequeños de este signo zodiacal siempre llevan la delantera. De hecho, los niños que han nacido bajo este signo, entre el 21 de marzo y el 19 de abril, se caracterizan por ser muy impacientes e intranquilos, siempre están listos para emprender cualquier tarea y dispuestos a aventurarse a lo desconocido. Suelen ser muy abiertos a las nuevas experiencias y disfrutan mucho explorando el mundo que les rodea. Son pequeños valientes, temerarios, arriesgados, aventureros, tozudos y auténticos líderes.
Los pequeños Aries suelen ser de naturaleza apasionada y creativa, por lo que no es extraño que irradien más energía y vitalidad que el resto de los niños de su edad. Además, son pequeños que destacan por su gran impulsividad y que tienden a actuar sin pensar demasiado en las consecuencias, lo cual puede causarles problemas con sus amigos y compañeros del colegio. De hecho, a los pequeños Aries les cuesta mantener bajo control sus emociones y suelen ser muy temperamentales, aunque esta característica también tiene un lado positivo ya que cuando desaparece la ira y el enfado, no suelen guardar rencor.
También se caracterizan por tener un espíritu competitivo que los motiva a emprender nuevos proyectos, aunque es probable que en muchos casos pierdan el interés antes de finalizarlos ya que suelen ser muy lábiles y pierden el entusiasmo con la misma facilidad con que lo desarrollaron. Además, los pequeños Aries suelen frustrarse con rapidez, ya sea porque consideran que no tienen las capacidades necesarias para enfrentarse a los retos o porque piensan que los demás no están a su altura. Cuando esto ocurre, todos sabrán lo que piensan ya que los niños de este signo suelen ser muy directos y sinceros.
A pesar de que los niños Aries suelen ser muy independientes y a veces incluso pueden parecer distantes y fríos, lo cierto es que son más sensibles de lo que aparentan, por lo que suelen rodearse de personas que les transmitan cariño y afecto y con las que se sientan seguros.
De hecho, los niños Aries no tienen problemas a la hora de hacer nuevas amistades ya que suelen ser muy cordiales con los extraños, se adaptan con facilidad a los entornos nuevos y se muestran receptivos ante las nuevas relaciones. No obstante, también pueden llegar a ser insoportables si se sienten forzados a estar o compartir con personas que no son de su agrado.
A los niños bajo el signo de Aries les apasionan los retos ya que son competitivos por naturaleza. Por eso, disfrutan con los desafíos a los que se enfrentan, ya sea en el colegio o en su vida cotidiana. También les gusta entretenerse con juegos intensos o actividades deportivas como el fútbol o el balonmano. De hecho, les encantan todas aquellas actividades que tengan altas dosis de acción y aventura, como excursiones, paseos de senderismo o campamentos de verano en contacto con la naturaleza.
¿Te ha gustado? Pues debes saber que puedes conocer otros perfiles astrológicos en nuestro Horóscopo infantil, ¡no te lo pierdas!
Perfil astrológico de los niños
La astrología no te lo dice todo sobre el carácter de tu bebé, pero con su fecha de nacimiento puedes conocer algunas las claves de su carácter. Los signos del zodiaco se basan en la posición de las estrellas en el momento del nacimiento del niño, por ejemplo, si nació entre el 21 de marzo y el 19 de abril será del signo de Aries.
(del 21 de marzo al 20 de abril)
Los bebés del signo de Aries tienen un fuerte sentido del descubrimiento e impaciencia para experimentar el mundo a su alrededor. Les gusta tener libertad de acción para moverse y manifestar toda su energía. No tiene sentido del peligro, lo suyo es llamar la atención. Y si no consiguen lo que quieren, estallan rápidamente en rabietas.
Son bebés traviesos y juguetones. Y en seguida notarás que quieren dominar y hacer ver que ellos son ‘los jefes’.
Generalmente, son chillones y ruidosos, además de impulsivos y valientes.
Lo de compartir no es lo suyo y por ello tener que convivir con otros niños no es tarea fácil para sus papis.
Normalmente son niños de carácter fuerte, llegando a ser hostiles y crueles si son reprimidos, y creativos si son animados a tener iniciativa.
Elementos positivos: Entusiasta, valiente, dinámico, competitivo, iniciador e independiente.
Elementos negativos: Irritable, dominante, violento, intolerante, arrogante, brusco, “primero Yo”, no escucha.
Aries. Perfil astrológico y carta natal de los niños según el signo del zodíaco de Aries. Guiainfantil.com te ofrece la posibilidad de conocer la personalidad de tu bebé de acuerdo con su fecha de nacimiento y signo zodiacal.
Tauro. Perfil astrológico y carta natal de los niños según el signo de Tauro. Guiainfantil.com te ofrece el perfil astrológico que nos permite conocer algo de cómo suelen ser la personalidad y el carácter de los bebés y niños de acuerdo con su fecha de nacimiento y signo astrológico.
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Géminis. Bebés y niños del signo de géminis. Perfil astrológico y carta natal de los niños según el signo de Géminis. Guiainfantil.com te ofrece algo de la personalidad de tu bebé de acuerdo con su fecha de nacimiento y signo.
Cáncer. Cómo son los bebés y niños del signo de Cáncer. Perfil astrológico y carta natal de los niños según el signo del zodíaco de Cáncer. Guiainfantil.com te da la oportunidad de conocer algo de la personalidad de tu bebé de acuerdo con su fecha de nacimiento y signo.
Leo. Bebés del signo de Leo. Perfil astrológico y carta natal de los niños según el signo de Leo. Guiainfantil.com ofrece el perfil de cada signo zodiacal para que puedan conocer algo de la personalidad de vuestro bebé segun su fecha de nacimiento y signo.
Virgo. Bebés y niños del signo de Virgo. Cómo son, qué les gusta, cómo transmiten sus emociones, etc. Perfil astrológico y carta natal de los niños según el signo de Virgo. La fecha de nacimiento de los niños puede darnos una idea sobre su caracter, sus gustos y sus sentimientos.
Libra. ¿Cómo son los niños y las niñas que nacen bajo el signo de Libra? Perfil astrológico y carta natal de los niños según el signo de Libra. Conozca algo de la personalidad, de las virtudes o cualidades, de los defectos de tu bebé de acuerdo con su fecha de nacimiento y signo.
Escorpio. Cómo suele ser el carácter y la forma de ser de un bebé del signo zodiacal de Escorpio. Perfil astrológico y carta natal de los niños Escorpio, es decir, los que nacen entre el 23 de octubre y el 21 de noviembre. Conoce mejor a tu bebé a partir de las características comunes de su signo astrológico.
Sagitario. Bebés del signo de Sagitario. Guiainfantil.com te ofrece un perfil astrológico y carta natal de los niños según el signo de Sagitario. Conozca algo de la personalidad de tu bebé de acuerdo con su fecha de nacimiento y signo.
Capricornio. Bebés, niños y niñas del signo de Capricornio. Guiainfantil.com ofrece un perfil astrológico aproximado de los niños según el signo de Capricornio.
Conozca algo de la personalidad de tu bebé de acuerdo con su fecha de nacimiento y signo. Capricornio. Perfil astrológico de los niños.
Acuario. Bebé del signo de Acuario. Guiainfantil.com ofrece el perfil astrológico y carta natal de los niños de acuario. Conozca algo de la personalidad de tu bebé de acuerdo con su fecha de nacimiento y signo.
Piscis. Bebés del signo de Piscis. Perfil astrológico y carta natal de los niños según el signo de Piscis. Conozca algo de la personalidad de tu bebé de acuerdo con su fecha de nacimiento y signo.
Puedes leer más artículos similares a Aries. Perfil astrológico de los niños, en la categoría de Astrología en Guiainfantil.com.
El Niño, which in Spanish means “boy”, “baby”, is a warm current that, for unknown reasons, periodically appears off the coast of Ecuador, Peru and Chile. The name of this phenomenon was given by Peruvian fishermen in honor of the baby Jesus.
They were the first to notice that every few years, during the celebration of Catholic Christmas, the water in the ocean becomes warmer, which leads to the mass death of fish. This discovery was made at the end of the 19th century. It took scientists more than a hundred years to understand how strongly the El Niño phenomenon affects the entire climate of our planet.
Under normal winter conditions, the western coast of Peru is washed by the Peru Current, which carries cold water from Antarctica along the western coasts of South America to the equator. Along the way, the water masses are saturated with nutrients, which contributes to the active development and growth of plankton and other life forms in the ocean. In a very small area of Peruvian-Chilean waters, the annual production of fish (mainly anchovy) exceeds 20% of the world’s total. The abundance of fish attracts huge flocks of fish-eating birds such as cormorants, boobies and pelicans.
In addition, the cold current determines the aridity of the climate in this part of Peru and forms the deserts at the foot of the Andes. The trade winds (steady winds blowing from the subtropics towards the equator) drive the heated surface layer of water into the western zone of the tropical Pacific Ocean, where the so-called tropical warm basin is formed. Off the coast of Indonesia, the water temperature reaches 29-30 °C versus 22-24 °C off the coast of Peru.
But everything changes when El Nino comes. The trade winds are noticeably weakening, the warm tropical basin is increasing, and the water temperature is rising over a vast area of the Pacific Ocean. The current off the coast of Peru changes its direction and temperature. The surface of the ocean becomes warmer, and the change in the direction of the current leads to the fact that the water ceases to be saturated with the necessary nutrients, fish die of starvation, and the migration of birds decreases. Along with the current, the direction of the wind also changes, now it brings moist air masses to the deserts of Peru.
As a result, high waters, mudflows and floods rage on a narrow strip of rocky coastal deserts. And at the same time, on the other side of the planet, Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia and other countries of the Western Pacific region are suffering from a terrible drought. To top it off, so-called “red tides” are developing from the Chilean coast to California, caused by the rapid growth of single-celled algae. El Niño even affects tropical cyclones in general, significantly reducing their activity.
It is believed that the warm phenomenon of El Niño (and its cold counterpart, La Niña – “girl” in Spanish) affects global temperature, precipitation and weather in general. In particular, years that are abnormally warm in terms of global average temperature are usually associated with El Niño.
The El Niño phenomenon does not pose a direct threat to human health and life. However (primarily in the southern hemisphere), it causes extreme weather conditions that can contribute to outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases: malaria, dengue fever, Rift Valley fever.
Similar cases during the years of the emergence of El Niño were recorded in India, Venezuela and Colombia. A prime example is the severe El Niño outbreak of Rift Valley Fever following extreme rainfall in northeastern Kenya and southern Somalia in 1997-1998
In addition, El Niño may be associated with the cyclical nature of military conflicts in those countries whose climate is directly affected by it. It is likely that the link between climate and military conflicts is mediated by crop failures that occur during years of droughts and floods.
Peruvian fishermen discovered the El Niño phenomenon for the first time. It is off the coast of Peru that El Niño reaches its peak on Christmas Eve. The very name of the anomaly speaks for itself – from Spanish it means “the child who comes at Christmas”. Already in the future, scientists were able to determine the specifics of the phenomenon, its causes, and most importantly, the consequences, sometimes devastating for the inhabitants of the Pacific coast.
Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences Daria Gushchina talks about the features of the anomaly.
Darya Yuryevna Gushchina — Professor of the Department of Meteorology and Climatology, Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
— Tell us about the El Niño climate anomaly, what is it and what is its function?
— El Niño is a natural phenomenon characterized by an anomalous increase in surface water temperature in the central and eastern zones of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. During El Niño episodes, atmospheric processes in the tropical zone are disrupted, which can cause extreme climatic events around the world.
It is rather difficult to talk about the function of this anomaly. But meanwhile, everything that exists on Earth and in its climate system has some function. “If the stars are lit, it means that someone needs it.” Therefore, everything that exists on Earth is a natural component of both the climatic environment and the earth’s system as a whole.
At the current level of development of science and modeling, we are talking not only about modeling a separate shell or medium (atmosphere, hydrosphere or lithosphere), but about the earth system as a whole. Therefore, in order to reproduce the current climate and predict changes in the future, it is necessary to take into account the interaction between all components of the earth system.
So El Niño is a full member of both the climate and the earth systems. As you rightly noted, this is some kind of climatic anomaly. Although there are opponents of such terminology, who believe that an anomaly is something that happens extremely rarely and without any kind of cyclicity. In principle, both points of view are accepted, since El Niño is a recurring phenomenon, and in a certain sense one can even speak of a certain cycle, even if it does not have a strict identical period.
I note that everything related to climate and weather, unfortunately, does not have a strict periodicity, unlike, for example, astronomy, where everything has long been calculated, predicted for thousands and millions of years ahead.
The climate system has a large chaotic component, which just leads to the fact that all events are always realized in a slightly different way.
If we talk about El Niño, then this anomaly, as a rule, lasts from 8-9 months to a year or more. There are cases when El Niño in the tropics of the Pacific Ocean lasted for almost two years.
The average return period is four years, although there is no clear spectral maximum. And the intervals can be from 2 to 7 years. It happened that for ten years not a single El Niño phenomenon was observed.
On a spatial scale, El Niño originally referred to a local phenomenon off the coast of Peru, but El Niño is now a global anomaly spanning the entire tropical Pacific Ocean and resonating in many parts of the globe.
El Niño observed in 1997 by the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite as part of a joint mission between NASA (USA) and the French space agency CNES
Source: Wikipedia
El Niño begins in the tropical Pacific.
It is here that it has the strongest influence on weather and climatic conditions, capturing Australia, South America and the western coast of North America, as well as subtropical latitudes, affecting the southeastern part of Eurasia.
Since we are talking about anomalous conditions that occur on the territory of tens of thousands of square kilometers, the increased flow of heat and moisture from the ocean to the atmosphere spreads quite quickly throughout the planet. Therefore, the so-called long-range El Niño connections can be traced in temperate, subpolar and even polar latitudes. This response is also being studied at our department.
However, do not go to extremes. Very often people associate El Niño, for example, with a thunderstorm in Moscow. Of course, this is impossible, since the spatial and temporal scales of these phenomena are completely different. Moreover, there are no unambiguous dependences of processes in temperate latitudes on El Niño. Although, of course, anomalous flows of heat and moisture, which in the atmosphere can spread over long distances, cause deviations in the distribution of atmospheric pressure.
Atmospheric pressure is related to the movement of air, in other words, the wind.
“Where does the wind blow from?” is the eternal question of human civilization. Even the ancient shamans and sages, in an attempt to predict the weather, were guided by winds and air currents. They understood that it was the movement of air that largely determined the conditions of the weather. Thus, atmospheric pressure anomalies and associated atmospheric circulation anomalies caused by El Niño cause weather and climate changes in temperate latitudes as well.
— Does El Niño affect the state of the climate system in this or that region of the Earth?
— El Niño can lead to changes in barometric pressure, which changes air currents. Therefore, remote influence does exist.
Meanwhile, temperate latitudes have their own weather kitchen. Here, the chaotic component, represented by cyclonic activity, that is, the constant change of cyclones and anticyclones, largely modifies the El Niño signal coming from the tropics.
El Niño is often called a current, and sometimes a hurricane, which is fundamentally wrong. Although there is a connection. Let me remind you that El Niño is a large-scale warming of the entire tropical Pacific Ocean. On average, the temperature of the ocean surface increases by one and a half to two degrees. It seems to be not so much. It is important that this warming is manifested in areas of tens of thousands of square kilometers. Sometimes in some areas the temperature rises immediately by five degrees above the norm, and in this case the consequences are very noticeable.
— When was this phenomenon first recorded?
– Interestingly, the phenomenon was discovered by Peruvian fishermen. The fact is that the western coast of South America, where Peru, Chile, Ecuador are located, is washed by the cold waters of the Peruvian Current. Due to the circulation in the atmosphere and in the ocean along the eastern periphery of the subtropical anticyclone, winds blow all the time from higher latitudes towards the equator, dragging water with them.
This is how currents form. On the coast of Peru, cold water comes from higher latitudes, forming an area with abnormally low temperatures. When compared with neighboring areas of the tropics of the Pacific Ocean, the temperature is five or even more degrees lower. Therefore, whales feel great in the waters of the Peruvian current, bringing income to the economy of Chile and Peru, where all kinds of tours are organized. But even this is not the main thing.
The cold waters are rich in plankton and plankton is the main food for fish. Therefore, in these areas, fishing is one of the most important sectors of the economy. Naturally, when this well-established system is broken, the catches decrease, the economy falls, and people suffer. So Peruvian fishermen on Christmas Eve noticed warming waters and a decrease in catch, calling the natural phenomenon “a child who comes at Christmas.” Perhaps this even pleased them, since they could rest for a few days on holidays. However, later it became clear that in some years, warming does not last a week, not two, or a month, but can continue throughout the year.
Of course, Peruvian fishermen at the beginning of the 20th century could not estimate the spatial dimensions of the anomaly. When the observational data appeared, scientists discovered that the effects of El Niño are observed not only off the coast of South America, but extend to the entire Pacific Ocean.
Since the ocean and the atmosphere are very closely related, and the change in surface temperature, as I said, determines the change in atmospheric pressure, the direction of the wind currents also change. Under the conditions of the climatic norm, over most of the tropical zone of the Pacific Ocean, the “classical” trade wind transport of air masses with stable easterly winds dominates, and only in the west of the Pacific Ocean, near Indonesia and Northern Australia, do equatorial western winds prevail. Blowing with great constancy, the trade winds bring warm water to the west of the Pacific Ocean. The wind acts on the ocean surface, and water is driven away from the coast of South America and surged to the western part, to Australia and Indonesia.
This leads to a very interesting consequence – warm water accumulates in the west of the Pacific Ocean, and cold water in the east.
— Why?
– Firstly, the temperature in the eastern part is affected by the mentioned cold Peruvian Current, and secondly, the law of conservation of mass operates. If water flows somewhere, then something must compensate for this. As compensation, water rises from below, which, of course, is colder. This phenomenon is called upwelling.
So, in the years of El Niño, due to the warming of the surface and changes in atmospheric pressure, the trade winds weaken, and sometimes they stop blowing altogether. They are “replaced” by westerly winds. And then there are three mechanisms that contribute to the development of this warming. The question is often asked: what comes first: warming in the Pacific Ocean or a decrease in pressure? But, as I said, it is a cycle, something that repeats, like a pendulum. One anomaly causes another, and a number of certain processes lead to the attenuation of the phenomenon.
Therefore, a certain pendulum system works in the Pacific Ocean.
— Then what contributes to warming?
– I would single out two main mechanisms. Let me remind you that the trade winds are weakening, and the surge of warm water to the west is decreasing. In fact, warm water begins to spread in the opposite direction. It is no longer held by the trade winds in the west, and there is a horizontal transfer of warm water from west to east, where El Niño occurs. Initially, scientists assumed that this system was perfectly explained by the design: “the wind blows – the water catches up, the wind does not blow – the water flows back.” But, unfortunately, nature does not like to give us gifts in the form of simple explanations. Detailed observational data have shown that this formula does not work at all. Because in fact the mechanism is more complex, and is connected not so much with what happens on the surface, but also with what happens at a shallow depth.
The ocean is essentially two layers, like a cream cake. The upper layer is warm and mixed, and the temperature practically does not change with depth. Next comes a zone of sharp jump called the thermocline, where the temperature drops sharply. The accumulation of warm water leads to the fact that in the west the thermocline is located at a depth of about two hundred meters, and in the east at a depth of 50 meters. It turns out a kind of slope. One of the founders of the theory of El Niño, Klaus Wirthky, coined an associative term – the Pacific swing. Imagine that two adults are swinging on the board. They, of course, will fall and rise in turn. But if an adult and a child are swinging, then the adult will always be either at the bottom, or with difficulty will be able to rise to the middle. Something similar is happening in the Pacific. Under normal conditions there is a slope of the thermocline, but under El Niño conditions there is no slope.
An attentive reader will say that the trade wind does not disappear completely, but continues to blow, why then does the process develop? This is where another mechanism comes into play.
Water is still driven away from the banks, and it is “replaced” by water from below. But if the mixed layer has become much thicker, then the rising water will no longer be cold, but warm. As a result, there is a huge warming of surface waters.
Daria Yurievna Gushchina at the Department of Meteorology and Climatology, Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University
Photo: Nikolai Mokhnachev / Scientific Russia
In general, the South American Pacific coast is very dry. This is a unique climatic region on the globe, where there seems to be an ocean and clouds, but there is no precipitation, and there is a desert on the coast. From vegetation – unfortunate cacti, which somehow manage to grow in such conditions. The fact is that the clouds above the cold current make up a thin layer and are located at an altitude of 800-1000 meters. Such clouds may look very scary – gray, dense, but do not give precipitation. Therefore, the only source of moisture for plants in these areas is dew.
However, when the water gets warmer, the effect of the influence of the cold current and the presence of temperature inversion (when the temperature does not fall with height, but rises) disappears, and then powerful clouds can form in these areas, bringing heavy rainfall.
Heavy rainfall on the slopes of the Andes is mudflows, landslides and a disaster for a population completely unaccustomed to rain. For example, in the city of La Serena, located in Chile, all government offices, schools, kindergartens are closed when it rains for several days.
El Niño also leads to the disappearance of plankton and, accordingly, fish, which greatly affects the economy of states.
On the opposite side, where the trade winds usually bring moisture – in Australia, Indonesia – during the El Niño years, there are terrible droughts and fires. For Indonesia, one of the world’s major coffee suppliers, this is a huge loss. Repeatedly during the years of El Niño, entire coffee plantations burned out in Indonesia.
– What about the big hurricanes that occur in the Americas? Is El Niño responsible for this or not?
— Of course, there is a connection. The fact is that hurricanes, they are also tropical cyclones, are formed over water, the temperature of which is more than 27 degrees. Accordingly, during El Niño years, when the entire surface of the Pacific Ocean gets warmer, the area occupied by warm waters increases, which means that the area where tropical cyclones can form expands. And in general, the number of tropical cyclones, especially in the South Pacific, is increasing. They are called differently: in Australia – Vili-Vili, in countries located north of the equator – typhoons, in the Atlantic – hurricanes, but in fact it’s all the same – a tropical cyclone. This is a giant whirlwind, which is accompanied by strong winds, storms and very intense precipitation.
A number of studies confirm that El Niño can affect the frequency and paths of tropical cyclones in other regions of the globe, but the effect is rather indirect.
For the formation of a tropical cyclone, a significant indicator can be considered a change in wind direction between the lower and upper troposphere, that is, a change in wind with height. If the change is small, then it is favorable for the occurrence of a tropical cyclone funnel. And if the wind in our country changes greatly with height, then such a funnel cannot arise.
Since El Niño, as we found out, changes atmospheric pressure on a large scale, the remote impact of the anomaly on cyclones is also possible in other regions of the globe.
– Is there a link between El Niño and climate change?
— Research in this direction is being actively conducted. Along with the El Niño forecast, the link to climate change is the fastest growing area.
The state of the climate is predicted not so much by climate models as by a model of the earth system, which includes the interaction of all shells: the biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, etc.
Climate models are a system of hydrodynamic equations based on which, according to certain climate scenarios, estimates of climate change are calculated.
Accordingly, the change in El Niño in the future climate can also be estimated only on the basis of climate models. But, unfortunately, there is no confident forecast of a unidirectional change in El Niño in the future climate. Different models give different results, sometimes up to opposite values.
Only one thing is certain: in the future, the number of extreme El Niños will increase. According to some models, the frequency of El Niño will also increase.
When the field of mathematical modeling began to develop, it turned out that one very interesting thing was manifested. In the early 2000s, an expert commission was set up within the World Meteorological Organization to formulate a definition of El Niño, since the criteria differed in different countries. From Russia, I was in this commission as an expert.
The commission members developed and approved a single definition in 2004. However, thereafter, within the framework of this definition, no El Niño events were observed for ten years. This caused confusion. But as observing systems have improved, scientists have found that El Niño is happening, but in a different area – in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
True, later the phenomenon developing in the center received a special name – El Nino Modoki, which in Japanese means “exactly the same, but different.” The idea is basically the same – warming of the surface layer of water, but observed in a different area. It should be noted. That the anomalous signal from the ocean to the atmosphere is transmitted largely due to the development of vertical mixing or vertical currents in the process of convection. So in the center of the Pacific Ocean, convection develops under normal conditions. Therefore, when some anomaly appears in the central regions of the Pacific Ocean, it is easily transferred to the atmosphere.
And in the east of the Pacific Ocean, convection does not develop, the water is too cold there. Therefore, even when El Niño occurs, some time must pass before the threshold is overcome, after which convection will begin to develop and signal transmission to the atmosphere will start.
That is, even if the surface temperature anomaly in the mid-Pacific Ocean is smaller than in the case of the eastern El Niño, the consequences can be comparable, since the effect of the impact occurs more quickly. In the beginning, it was believed that the “movement” of El Niño was due to global warming. But thanks to reanalysis – the use of models that restore time series, they found out that there were such El Ninos before.
In general, if we talk about the mutual effect of El Niño and climate change, then here it is necessary to take into account a huge number of complex feedbacks. Any response can both strengthen the initial event and weaken it. A real tangled mess. To unravel it, describe it mathematically correctly and include it in models is, in general, a very difficult task.
— How is El Niño forecasting solved today?
— There are different approaches and models. For example, forecasts of climate change are calculated for decades and a century ahead. If we talk about the forecast for each specific next El Niño, then the forecast should be operational, on a scale of 1-2 years.
Today, despite all the efforts of the world scientific community and the improvement of models, it is not yet possible to predict El Niño more than nine months in advance. And there are a lot of jokes about this too. As I said, El Niño means “baby” in Spanish. So they say that it is impossible to predict the birth of a baby more than nine months in advance, and in the case of El Niño, the association is accurate.
However, this joke has a very scientific explanation. Researchers have long been trying to determine what triggers El Niño. Why does the phenomenon occur once every two years, then once every seven or ten? If the cycle were clear, then we would always know when the next El Niño would come. What is the trigger? Scientists are sure that El Niño arises due to the appearance of the westerly wind anomaly, which in turn is associated with another very interesting phenomenon – the Madden-Julian oscillation. Oscillation develops in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. These fluctuations take the form of alternating areas with increased and weakened precipitation, 6000 and 12000 km in size, respectively. The system is moving east at a speed of 4 to 8 m/s over the warm regions of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The phenomenon occurs near the African coast and slowly moves over 30-60 days, passing through the entire Indian Ocean and up to the center of the Pacific Ocean, where it disappears. It is this phenomenon that is believed to be causing the more intense westerly wind anomaly, which creates an anomaly in the ocean. It is moving towards the eastern Pacific Ocean, where El Niño conditions are being created.
The problem is that the MJO (Madden – Julian oscillation) itself is difficult to predict.
However, if we see that strong westerly winds appeared in March-April, then the trigger is pulled, the process has begun, and in 9 months we can predict the beginning of El Niño.
— It would seem that El Nino, the Pacific Ocean is all very far from our country. How did this topic begin to develop in Russia?
— If we talk about the development of tropical meteorology in Russia, then the palm belongs to our Department of Meteorology and Climatology at the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University. Sergey Petrovich Khromov, who headed the department, in the 60-70s participated in the research program on “Slits”, when ships moved along one meridian almost across the entire globe and carried out detailed observations. As a result, a lot of data was accumulated, including data on the tropics, which Sergei Petrovich “brought” with him. Employees of the department got access to the data, after which the research began.
Mikhail Aramaisovich Petrosyants, who headed the department from 1981 to 2005, continued the development of tropical meteorology.
By the way, until 1981 he was the director of the Hydrometeorological Center of the Soviet Union.
This was the heyday of the Hydrometeorological Service: a lot of funding was allocated, and the country was one of the main participants in international projects, including two tropical experiments TROPEX-72 and TROPEX-74, which Mikhail Aramaisovich headed from the Soviet Union.
Portrait of Mikhail Aramaisovich Petrosyants in one of the classrooms of the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University
Photo: Nikolai Mokhnachev / Scientific Russia
Again, a huge amount of data was accumulated, including on El Niño, which led to an increase in interest from the staff of the department. In general, El Niño is studied in almost all countries of the world, since the consequences of this phenomenon are truly global
— Why did you become interested in climate at the time?
Interest appeared at school.
In the 5th grade I had a wonderful geography teacher Vera Eremeevna Sosina. She spoke very fascinatingly about geographical phenomena and processes. At the same time, geographical maps appeared in the room, which I loved to study very much.
Although then I was carried away by other directions. I wanted to be a musician, and a volcanologist, and a choir conductor. By the way, the love for choral art has survived to this day – I sing in the choir of Moscow University.
As a result, I paid attention to the Faculty of Geography, although there was an interest in both physics and mathematics. After conferring with our parents, we began to look in geography for the most physical and mathematical field of science. Such was meteorology. True, I have always had a passion for oceanology, but in the 90s girls were not accepted into oceanology at all.
But in general, fate still led me to the ocean. I began to study El Niño, which develops in the ocean.
Therefore, I often communicate with oceanologists, not only Russian, but also French. And the interaction of the ocean and the atmosphere is my main scientific topic.
By the way, in the 1980s, a translated edition of the American journal Scientific American appeared in Russia for the first time – the journal V Mir nauki. It always contained beautiful illustrations and interesting articles. One of the issues featured an article about El Niño. I was fascinated by the logical chain, the fact that everything is interconnected, everything influences each other. Even today, I like to repeat the phrase to my students: even if you forgot something, try to unravel the tangle of logic.
After reading the article, I turned to the head of the department, Mikhail Aramaisovich Petrosyants, and to the current head, Alexander Viktorovich Kislov, who at that time was leading our educational practice, with a question about this topic. With the light hand of Alexander Viktorovich and Mikhail Aramaisovich, I came to Evgeny Konstantinovich Semenov, who unfortunately passed away quite recently.
And my first term paper of the third year was devoted to the phenomenon of El Niño. And then, under the guidance of first Evgeny Konstantinovich, then Mikhail Aramaisovich, then on my own, as part of my doctoral dissertation, I devoted my entire conscious scientific life to this interesting phenomenon.
— The last, rather philosophical, question: how do you feel about nature and its destructive forces? Is it worth being afraid of or is it something that a person cannot comprehend?
— I, perhaps, belong to those who are also afraid of natural disasters. I understand that a person will never be able to cope with the energy and power of nature to the end. Such terrible phenomena as fires, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions are beyond our control. The only thing we can do is evacuate in time. And evacuation is possible with timely warning.
Therefore, of course, a lot of efforts of specialists from all over the world are directed to the forecast of catastrophic phenomena.
Although the devil is not as scary as he is painted. There is also a subjective factor. Before, we just knew less about it. Now it is enough to snow somewhere in Argentina, tomorrow all the media will write about the anomaly. At the end of the 20th century, anything could fall anywhere, but they talked more about politics, about the Cold War, and less about snow in Argentina. Now the topic of weather and climate has become extremely fashionable and we learn about all cataclysms almost immediately.
Therefore, of course, each specific person has a somewhat exaggerated idea of the increase in the number of natural disasters. After all, he simply did not know about them before. And today information is heard from everywhere: from TV, on the radio, on the Internet. Even the Ministry of Emergency Situations warns us regularly through messages.
But nevertheless, scientific data show that the number of extreme precipitation and storms is increasing. However, this all depends heavily on the region, because the “average temperature in the hospital” does not mean anything.
But natural disasters remain. We cannot stop nature. The flowing lava cannot be dealt with, as well as the tsunami going to the coast. And even a tropical cyclone, even if it is not so terrible, if it has formed and goes to the continent, it is impossible to stop. Although there were some projects during the Cold War era, in which it was proposed to warm the ocean so that the tropical cyclone went where it needed to. But this is impossible.
– And that’s probably a good thing.
– Yes, that’s probably good. Although, of course, some attempts are being made. As in the case of the famous dispersal of clouds. Of course, no one is driving anyone anywhere. If we do not want rain to fall over Red Square, then we must make sure that the cloud falls as precipitation before reaching Moscow. So, it is necessary to seed ice crystals into the cloud. This is solved with the help of silver iodide. Getting into the cloud, silver iodide starts the process of crystal formation, and precipitation falls where the “seeding” occurred.