Pacific cold tongue (IMAGE)
Caption
A temperature map of the Pacific Ocean for December 1993 showing a cold (blue) tongue of surface water stretching westward along the equator from the coast of South America. The temperature and extent of the cold tongue changes with the seasons, but new climate simulations show that the annual change in Earth’s distance from the sun also affects the cold tongue seasonal cycle. This influences El Niño conditions that impact weather in North America and globally.
Credit
John Chiang, UC Berkeley
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