Forecast for El Nino

摘要

An image taken of the Pacific Ocean last September is startling. Made using data collected from satellites monitored by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the picture shows the surface level of the Pacific as clearly as a yardstick lying across a lumpy bed. One swatch of water-with a volume 30 times that of all the Great Lakes-is white, indicating that it is as much as 13 inches higher than its normal level. That swatch runs die-straight across the Pacific from near Australia before it torpedoes South America.