Have you ever watched the evening news with your folks and wondered how the weather person could have been so wrong?  You wore shorts to school that day only to find yourself freezing during lunch.  Predicting the weather is a very difficult task.  The many factors which impact your daily local weather can be thousands of miles away, so Meteorologists use a variety of different remote tools including satellites and buoys to help them make predictions. The buoy to the right is an example of a tool used by scientists. These experts make their predictions by building models using historical and current data.

El Niño and La Niña cycles are examples of these complex patterns.  In this investigation, you will learn more about El Niño and La Niña cycles, and how they impact the weather in your area.  To accomplish this task, you will be logging into one of same ocean buoys that scientists use to develop their models.  

YOUR TASK

You will be part of an expert team.  Your team will be responsible for collecting data, organizing it in an appropriate graphic form, and analyzing it for the purpose of making weather predictions in your community.  After making your prediction, you will write a speculation paper that details how you reached your conclusion.  Your last task will be to share your findings with the scientific community. 

As winter approaches, you will be on the hot seat, and you’ll get a taste of what it's like to be a weather person.  To be successful, you need to ask great questions, seek out the answers, develop new relationships, and take a stand.

THE PROCESS

Your team will be taking a seven-step approach to accomplishing the project.  You will begin by learning more about El Niño and La Niña.  After gaining a solid understand of these cycles, you will log into an ocean buoy and begin gathering your data and building a model.  Your final task will be to craft an effective speculation paper about the coming winter, and share your findings with the scientific world.

Step 1: In the news

El Niño and La Niña cycles have a tremendous impact on the world's weather.  It is hard to believe that ocean water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean can impact mid-America states, but the national news organizations have reported on the extensive impact of the cycle. Read the two articles below, and write a short summary of each one.

Step 2: Background information

Split up and assign each member of your group one of the Web pages listed below.  After exploring the Web pages individually, get back together in your group and answer the following questions.

1. What is the difference between El Niño and La Niña?
2. Why is predicting these cycles important?
3. What are the possible impacts on weather due to a La Niña cycle?
4. What are the possible impacts on weather due to an El Niño cycle?
5. Is the earth always in either an El Niño or El Niña cycle?
6. Write and answer four additional questions that you believe would help people understand the El Niño and La Niña Cycles.

Resources

It's time to start gathering sea surface temperatures (SST), so your team can begin to build a useful model.  You will be using a buoy located at 110 degrees West and 0 degrees North.  You will begin by gathering today's real-time data, and then adding that value to the temperatures for the last 14-days. 

1. Use the link above to collect the today's daily (SST) for the 110 W 0 N buoy. (Note: When you place the mouse on the correct buoy, the window below will show the real-time information.)
2. Access and print the data for the last 14-days.
3. Calculate anomaly for each day. (Learn how to calculate an anomaly.) 
4. Place the data and calculations in a well-constructed table. Be sure to include a table title, column headings, and units.
5. Create a line graph for both the SST data and your calculated anomalies. (Example anomaly graph | Example SST graph)

Step 4: Historical model