El Niño and La Niña: What They Are and How Forecasts Work
A clear guide to El Niño, La Niña, ENSO monitoring, forecast probabilities, global impacts, and the limits of seasonal prediction.
Oceans
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How far can you see across the ocean?
From a beach, the sea horizon often looks like a clean line drawn across the world. Its distance is much shorter than the view suggests. For an adult whose eyes are about 1.5 meters above calm water, the geometric horizon is roughly 4.4 kilometers away. A higher deck, cliff, or mast extends that line of…
Why the Persian Gulf is so salty
Evaporation is the engine behind the Persian Gulf’s remarkable saltiness. Sun and dry air remove water from the sea surface, yet leave dissolved salts behind. The remaining water becomes denser and gradually sinks. A narrow outlet, the Strait of Hormuz, then helps the Gulf replace the lost water while sending some of its dense, salty…
Persian Gulf corals endure summers near 36 °C with a heat-tolerant algal partner limited by salinity
Summer water near some Persian Gulf reefs can approach 36 °C, a temperature that would bleach many tropical corals. Yet reef-building corals persist in the Gulf’s southern reaches. Their survival has made the region an unusually important natural laboratory for a hard question: how does a coral partnership keep functioning when heat pushes close to…