El Niño Research Paper

El Niño is an oceanographic process that has many implications for areas around the globe. This anomaly causes major changes to atmospheric and oceanic processes. Noticeable changes in weather patterns can be seen, both near the locations in which the El Nino warming dominates and areas halfway across the world. These weather patterns cause ecological, economic, and biological issues.
El Niño is a term that was coined to describe the annual weak warm ocean current running southward along the coast of Peru and Ecuador in December (Trenberth, 1997). However, the term is now used to refer to larger warmings that only occur every few years and cause larger scale ecological changes. The warming of the oceans along the coast of South America …show more content…
For example, zooplankton that have high concentrations of lipid stores normally dominate the California Current ecosystem and are an important food source for fish, birds, and mammals in the area (Fisher et al, 2015). The high productivity in this region is attributed to coastal upwelling that occurs in the spring and summer months. This upwelling brings nutrient-rich waters to the surface that support the diets of lipid-rich copepod species. These copepods attract the fish that eat them, which attracts larger marine life. Many species, like sea turtles, migrate to the California Current region during the spring and summer to feed and store up fats for longer migrations and breeding season. However, warm water in this area attracts copepods that have poor lipid stores, and populations of lipid-rich copepods will be reduced, ultimately reducing the productivity of organisms at high trophic levels. A study looked at 10 different El Niño events and their effects on the timing, magnitude, and duration of temperature and copepod community composition (Fisher et al, 2015). Zooplankton were sampled from 1969-1973, 1983, and 1996-2013. Strong El Niño events marked dramatic shifts of primary production and zooplankton populations, however, the research also concluded that shifts can be seen in shorter, weaker ENSO events. Reduced primary production was found to be associated with changes in species composition. Since the lipid-rich zooplankton migrated to cooler waters, the area was dominated by other species of zooplankton with little or no lipid stores. The food quality in warmer waters decreased, which in turn could have made it difficult for larger organisms to get the nutrients and fat they needed to make their long

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