Scientists work to mine data provided by recent El Niño
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029627
Nature : Thanks to funding provided by NSF and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US has been able to deploy aircraft, research ships, and hundreds of weather balloons to study the recent strong El Niño event. Monster El Niños are rare and provide an opportunity to collect detailed atmospheric measurements and sea surface temperatures that can be studied for decades to come. So far, the current El Niño has caused floods in South America, drought in Africa, and coral bleaching in the oceans. Because of the worldwide effects, better monitoring of such large-scale climate events is crucial to improving climate modeling and weather forecasting.