Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A climatic event occurring every two to seven years, characterized by warming of surface waters and reduced upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water off the western coast of South America, causing die-offs of plankton and fish and influencing jet stream winds, altering storm tracks and affecting the climate over much of the world.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
invasion of warm water into the surface of thePacific Ocean off the coast ofPeru andEcuador every four to seven years that causes changes in local and regionalclimate , associated with a positive anomaly.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[American Spanish (originally used by fisherman in Ecuador and Peru as a name for the warm ocean current typically appearing around Christmastime in El Niño years), from Spanish, the Christ child : el, the (from Latin ille; see al- in Indo-European roots) + niño, child (from Old Spanish ninno, from Vulgar Latin *nīnnus).]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Spanish, meaning “The Little Boy,” referring to the Christ child, as the phenomenon is observed around Christmas time
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