El Nino to be better observed from space: NASA

El Nino will be better observed from space this winter than any previous El Nino events, the U.S. space agency NASA said Monday.

Using satellite observations in tandem with supercomputer processing power for modeling systems, scientists now have a comprehensive suite of tools to analyze El Nino events and their global impacts than never before, NASA said.

This year's El Nino is likely to equal the 1997-98 event, the strongest one on record, NASA said.

"El Nino is a fascinating phenomenon because it has such far-reaching and diverse impacts. The fact that fires in Indonesia are linked with circulation patterns that influence rainfall over the United States shows how complex and interconnected the Earth system is," said Lesley Ott, research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

During the 1997-98 El Nino, sea levels dropped a foot (30 cm) in the western Pacific, leaving coral reefs high and dry. This year's El Nino has already caused the sea level to drop seven inches (18 cm) in the western tropical Pacific Ocean.

El Nino is a natural phenomenon which occurs every two to seven years and lasts between six and 18 months. It manifests as a warming of the surface waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.

This warm condition affects the local aquatic environment, but also spurs extreme weather patterns around the world, from flooding in California to droughts in Australia. Endi