The Mid-Atlantic Ocean has taken on a new trend: rapid cooling. Climatologists aren’t sure why, but the surface temperatures of the Mid-Atlantic have been rapidly cooling recently after three years of strong El Niños and record-topping warmth. This cooling trend might be due to a transition from a strong El Niño warming cycle to an equally strong La Niña cooling cycle, but that may not entirely explain this anomaly. Let’s take a look into what’s going on underneath the waves.
What Scientists Do Know
Ocean currents directly affect atmospheric weather patterns, so El Niño (Spanish for “little boy”) cycles aren’t isolated to only the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean. During El Niño cycles, warm, moist air travels on the jet stream across the North American continent, fueling storms in the South Atlantic Ocean. In the last three years, El Niño has been especially intense; scientists believe this intensity could in part explain the rapid pace of the cooling trend. There have been record-warm ocean and land temperatures due to El Niño, so what goes up must eventually come down. It’s not that simple, of course; the question remains why there is such rapid cooling after the three-year warming uptick.
What La Niña Is
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If you speak Spanish, you know that La Niña means “little girl.” In the meteorological context, La Niña is the cooling of the Mid-Atlantic region. This cooling occurs at the surface level, but according to NOAA climatologists, the Atlantic Ocean’s warmth doesn’t disappear completely; it has to go somewhere. They believe this excess warmth is stored in deeper underwater ocean currents, typically during a La Niña event. This warmer water doesn’t stay down forever, because colder ocean water is denser and pushes it upwards. Over the past several years, the warmer water has been observed to move further North than usual, while the colder waters have been upwelling in tropical regions.
La Niña and El Niño aren’t new; they’re a natural ocean and atmospheric cycle. They work in sync to “balance out” the global temperatures overall through a cycle called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, ENSO for short. Since record keeping of ENSOs started in the 1950’s, both La Niña and El Niño have increased in intensity and length, causing major changes in global temperatures and weather patterns. This could be a natural trend, but scientists just aren’t sure yet. Climatologists theorize that the Mid and North Atlantic could be preparing for a record La Niña cycle for the coming 2024 winter. This could mean more frequent and intense hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean due to less atmospheric stability.
The Temperature Difference And Why It Matters
NOAA reports a surface temperature drop of 0.5 degrees Celsius (± 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Mid and Tropical-Atlantic. This may not seem like a dramatic change to most people, but it has a ripple effect on the surrounding land masses. In the Southern Atlantic, between the continents of South America and Africa, this upwelling of colder water causes cold fronts in the atmosphere. On the flip side, the shift of warmer water into the North Atlantic is detrimental to the ecosystem. Coral reefs are bleaching, and species that thrive in cooler water are declining.
With the cold fronts clashing with warm, humid tropical air, the conditions will be suitable for producing hurricanes and tropical storms because of this atmospheric instability. This makes a La Niña year so dangerous for those living in Central America, the Caribbean region, the United States East Coast, and the Canadian Maritimes. This danger became readily apparent on July 1, 2024, when Hurricane Beryl became the earliest recorded Category Five tropical storm in the North Atlantic basin. Across its path spanning from the Caribbean Sea to New England, Beryl claimed at least 45 lives.
The Final Takeaway
While climatologists are still learning the exact reasons for rapid cooling in the Mid-Atlantic, they do know that conditions look like a record year for tropical cyclones. Even a half-degree temperature change is enough to affect atmospheric weather patterns significantly, and its consequences have already been seen with Hurricane Beryl. Nothing on the planet is truly isolated; these kinds of atmospheric changes affect us all.
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