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Answer the following questions by typing into the text box or uploading your written answers. Use the graphs above,

your knowledge from lecture, and any other reputable sources on the internet (NOAA, NASA, or NWS, for example) to

answer the three questions below.

Q1. Did an El Niño event occur during the winter of 2015?

Q2: Using what we learned in class, what could have caused the crabs to appear along the beaches of California?

Q3: What kind of evidence backs up your claim for Q1 and Q2? Include specific data and observations from the

graphs &

maps you observed using 3-4 sentences./nwas.txstate.edu/courses/1960908/assignments/26613066

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Degrees Celsius

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Temperature at the Equator (Normal Year)

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70″W

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Observe the line graph of sea surface temperature data from December 2015 below. Notice how temperature

changes along one line of

latitude, in this case along the equator, during December 2015.

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Sea Surface Temperature at the Equator, December 2015

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state.edu/courses/1960908/assignments/26613066

This Activity was developed using data and scenarios from UCAR and NOAA. You can learn more about El Nino and

these datasets here, but you do not need to use this website to complete the activity. Think through the scenario

below and answer the questions using data and what know know about ENSO.

Degrees Celsius

Scenario: It's the winter of 2015. The waters along the coast of California are unusually warm. Huge numbers

of pelagic red crabs that are typically common in the warmer waters off the coast of Mexico are now washing up along

beaches of California. Have the warmer surface waters in California brought this sub-tropical species northward?

Could these observations be the result of an El Niño Event? Your job today is to try to find out - using data.

During a normal year, the temperature difference between warm water in the west and cooler water in the east is

evident in the slope of the line on Temperature Plot A (on the left). During an El Niño year, the area of high

temperature can be seen extending farther to the east than in a typical year, as is shown on Temperature Plot B (on

the right). The temperature difference from west to east may also be smaller during an El Niño year.

Temperature at the Equator (El Niño Year)

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