Final answer:
El Niño is a warm phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation that disrupts normal weather patterns and results in various extreme weather events worldwide, including drought, floods, and economic consequences for agriculture and fisheries.
Step-by-step explanation:
Effects of El Niño Around the World
El Niño is a warm phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which brings significant climate and environmental impacts across the globe. During El Niño, there's a band of unusually warm ocean water in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific, which can disrupt normal weather patterns. This results in high air pressure in the western Pacific and low air pressure in the eastern Pacific, causing changes in the wind patterns that can lead to extreme weather events.
Regions around the world experience varying effects due to El Niño. Agriculturally dependent economies, especially those focused on farming and fishing, can suffer drastically from these altered conditions. Common consequences include fires, drought, floods, crop failures, insect outbreaks, disease spread, and higher prices for goods and services due to scarcity. These impacts highlight the interconnectedness of global weather patterns and economic systems.
In contrast, La Niña, the cool phase of ENSO, leads to opposite conditions with cooler than average SST in the eastern Pacific and altered pressure gradients. While La Niña is typically less destructive, it still causes significant impacts on global weather patterns. Both El Niño and La Niña form part of the larger narrative of Earth's environmental history, where short-term climate occurrences, like these, add to the long-term cycles of climatic changes which have shaped human civilization.
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