Chile: The arrival of La Niña is announced…
La Niña is a term used to describe a natural phenomenon resulting from the interaction of ocean temperature and the atmosphere that occurs every few years in a large area of the Pacific region, between the coasts of South America and Oceania.
According to a report prepared in the University of Columbia, it is projected that before January of 2018 there is a great possibility that the phenomenon of La Niña in Chile will be unleashed. The study, prepared by the International Institute for Research on Climate and Society of the aforementioned university, predicts a hot, low humidity environment, with a noticeable increase in wind, as a result of the cooling of the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean, the opposite of the phenomenology observed with El Niño, which is the warming of the waters of the same ocean.
The season is then projected drier, a product that inhibits the formation of cloudiness, preventing the possibility of rain. To this scarce cloudiness it is necessary to add the increase of the heat and the raco wind, called terral in the northern zone and puelche in the central and southern zone of the country, which is characterized by producing strong gusts from the cordilleran caissons towards the valleys, product of the air cooling in height, or the transit of an anticyclone, which also constitutes a favorable scenario for possible large-scale forest fires.
La Niña is a term used to describe a natural phenomenon resulting from the interaction of ocean temperature and the atmosphere that occurs every few years in a large area of the Pacific region, between the coasts of South America and Oceania, and occurs when the winds of the intertropical region, which blow from the American coasts in the direction of the Asian ones, begin to intensify, dragging the colder surface waters of the Pacific in their wake.
Chile
In the north and central zone of Chile, including the oceanic area, there is an intensification of the circulation of air masses that descend from the upper atmosphere to the surface, which causes this zone of high pressure to increase in extension and intensity, preventing the entry of frontal systems and the development of cloud cover associated with rainfall in the center and south of the country.
The southern and southern part of Chile do not usually experience large thermal changes during La Niña and it is observed that the precipitations suffer an important deficit from the Bío Bío region towards the north. Specifically between the V and the VIII region this phenomenon has produced levels close to the 80% decrease in rainfall, affecting mainly agricultural activity, in addition to livestock, mining and the energy sector due to water scarcity.
Under normal conditions, the atmospheric circulation in Chile is characterized by two factors that regulate the climate: the subtropical anticyclone of the southeast Pacific and the belt of low subpolar pressures. The first corresponds to an area of high pressures that affects the north and central part of the country throughout the year, permanently. The second corresponds to the location of the low pressure belt - between 45 ° and 55 ° south latitude - whose displacements to the north occur in winter periods, which creates the creation of frontal systems that regularly enter between La Serena and Concepción .
According to historical records and analyzes of the surface temperature of the ocean, in the equatorial Pacific region, the phenomenon of La Niña has been observed intermittently in Chile since 1904, every certain number of years, which varies between 4 and 10, and in the vast majority of these episodes it begins in the spring of one year until autumn - winter of the following year.
Source: Martín Carrillo O. - Blueberries Consulting
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