| 释义 |
‖ El Niño, n.|ɛl ˈniːɲo, anglicized ɛl ˈniːnjəʊ|
[a. Sp., shortened f. El Niño de Navidad, the Christmas Child; see quot. 1918. See also *Niño n.]
a. A warming of the water off the coast of northern Peru occurring annually between Christmas and March as a southward current of warm equatorial water displaces the northward Peru or Humboldt Current; the warm current itself.
b. (Now the usual sense.) More fully, El Niño–Southern Oscillation. An extreme version of the same phenomenon, occurring at irregular intervals and extending westwards across the equatorial Pacific Ocean, which is associated with widespread changes in weather and severe ecological damage; all the climatic and ecological phenomena associated with this. Freq. attrib.
1896F. A. Pezet in Rep. 6th Internat. Geogr. Congr. 603 (title) The counter-current ‘El Niño’, on the coast of northern Peru. 1918Geogr. Rev. V. 132 It is not uncommon for a current from the north—locally known as El Niño from its frequency during the Christmas season—to prevail in the region of Tumbes at 3½° S. 1942H. U. Sverdrup Oceanogr. ix. 191 In disturbed years..the El Niño extends far south along the coast of Peru. 1963G. L. Pickard Descriptive Physical Oceanogr. vii. 165 At intervals of a few years the high temperatures extend 5 to 10 degrees farther south than usual, a condition known as ‘El Niño’. 1980Christian Sci. Monitor 22 Oct. 16/4 El Niño appears to be part of a large scale air-sea phenomenon that includes severe winters in North America. 1984Austral. Financial Rev. 12 June 1/1 The El Nino effect..has been largely blamed for the 1982 drought and.., in its decline, was responsible for the wet start to 1984. 1985H. V. Thurman Introductory Oceanogr. (ed. 4), When the oscillations are extreme—producing very widespread warm surface water conditions and minimal pressure differences across the tropical Pacific—they are called El Niño–Southern Oscillation. 1988New Scientist 7 Jan. 40/1 The last five El Niños from 1965 until this year had coincided with a sharp increase in the number of earthquakes along the East Pacific Rise near Easter Island. |