La Nina dan El Nino Masih Terus Mendera Indonesia

ANOMALI cuaca global La Nina yang menyebabkan hujan di atas
normal, telah menimbulkan bencana di berbagai wilayah di seputar
cekung Pasifik, tidak terkecuali Indonesia. Cengkeraman La Nina
pada Bumi ini yang bertahan sejak tahun 1999 hingga tahun 2000,
terlihat sama kuatnya dengan El Nino tahun 1997/1998 yang telah
dinyatakan sebagai terparah pada abad ini.

Ketika itu ada 15 negara yang terkena dampak El Nino, berupa
kekeringan yang berkepanjangan. Akibat dari ketiadaan air selama
berbulan-bulan itu, kerugian total yang diderita penduduknya
mencapai 13 milyar dollar Amerika Serikat atau sekitar Rp 123
trilyun dalam kurs saat ini. Bukan itu saja, El Nino tahun 1997/1998
juga menewaskan sekitar 2.000 orang.

Di Indonesia sendiri kerugian akibat kebakaran hutan yang terjadi
pada tahun itu terhitung hampir Rp 9 trilyun. Selain itu, ada hal lain
yang ditimbulkan El Nino, yakni penduduk yang tewas mencapai 530
orang.

Lalu bagaimana dengan dampak La Nina yang bertahan sejak tahun
lalu? Pengaruh La Nina yang muncul pada musim kemarau
sepatutnya memberi dampak menguntungkan bagi petani, yang
tahun sebelumnya mengalami paceklik akibat kemarau panjang.
Karena dengan seringnya terjadi hujan pada musim kemarau, masa
tanam atau panen mereka lebih banyak. Meski diakui bahwa kondisi
sebaliknya akan dialami petani garam dan tembakau, yang
mengharapkan cukup panas pada musim kemarau. Namun, secara
umum, dengan banyaknya curah hujan, hal itu semestinya lebih
banyak memberi keuntungan.

Namun, pada musim hujan saat ini La Nina lebih banyak
menimbulkan kerugian. Bencana banjir dan tanah longsor terjadi di
mana-mana. Korban harta benda mencapai milyaran rupiah dan telah
terhitung ratusan nyawa melayang tertimbun tanah longsor.

Itu baru dampak awal, karena La Nina masih akan mengancam
sepanjang musim hujan periode ini yang berlangsung hingga April
tahun 2001.

Kondisi hangat

Yoshifumi Kuroda, peneliti dari Departemen Riset dan Observasi Laut
Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (Jamstec), dalam
presentasinya di kapal Mirai medio November lalu mengungkapkan,
dari Desember hingga awal Juni tahun 2001 diprakirakan suhu muka
laut di barat Pasifik dalam kondisi yang hangat. Namun, tidak dalam
tingkat yang signifikan.

Itu artinya, di kawasan itu masih akan banyak hujan namun dalam
tingkat yang normal sampai pertengahan tahun depan. Prakiraan
yang sama juga dikeluarkan oleh National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), Script Institute of Oseanography (SIO), dan
Badan Meteorologi Australia. Menurut SIO, dari Desember hingga
awal Juni kondisi cuaca akan normal.

Namun, setelah itu, papar Kuroda, antara Juni hingga Agustus mulai
muncul kolam panas di barat Pasifik, kemudian meluas ke arah barat
antara September hingga November 2001. Gejala ini menandakan
terjadinya fenomena El Nino.

Sementara itu, prakiraan dari European Center for Midrange Data
Forcast di Inggris, ucap Kuroda lagi, dari Januari hingga Maret di
sebagian besar wilayah Indonesia akan terjadi banyak hujan dengan
curah hujan di atas 50 mm.

Sementara itu, Japan Meteorological Agency meramalkan, kondisi
cuaca tahun depan akan normal. Namun, berdasarkan data
pengamatan yang diperoleh, Kuroda memperkirakan akan terjadi
akumulasi menghangatnya suhu muka laut di Pasifik mulai Maret
atau April, dan akan meluas ke seluruh kawasan ekuator Pasifik.
Karena itu Kuroda menyarankan untuk bersiap-siap menghadapi
datangnya El Nino.

Dampak positif

Sementara itu, Kepala Ekspedisi Mirai, Dr Keisuke Mizuno,
mengatakan, terjadi penyimpangan cuaca dapat memberi dampak
yang positif bagi sektor perikanan. Karena pada masa itu terjadi
migrasi ikan tuna ke wilayah Indonesia.

Saat La Nina suhu muka laut di barat Samudera Pasifik hingga
Indonesia menghangat. Kondisi ini mendorong ikan tuna dari Pasifik
timur yang dingin bergerak masuk ke kawasan timur Indonesia.
Seperti dikemukakan Dwi Susanto, pakar cuaca BPPT, belum lama
ini, perairan barat Pasifik selama ini diketahui merupakan kawasan
yang memiliki kelimpahan ikan tuna tertinggi, mencapai 70 persen
stok ikan tuna dunia.

Sebaliknya, ketika terjadi El Nino, ikan tuna di Pasifik bergerak ke
timur. Namun, ikan yang berada di Samudera Hindia bergerak masuk
ke selatan Indonesia. Hal itu karena perairan di timur samudera ini
mendingin, sedangkan yang berada di barat Sumatera dan selatan
Jawa menghangat.

The El Niño and La Niña are components of Terracycles. El Nino and La Nina are effects linking the ocean to the atmosphere and help drive climate change. As NASA, NOAA and other world science organizations continue to measure the oceans and atmosphere we can expect to see a clear link among solar irradiance, ENSO events, tides, plate tectonics, volcanism, global warming, ice advances, and other Earth cycles.Every 1,500 years or so Greenland's climate had undergone temperature changes of up to 59 degrees Fahrenheit. ... The abrupt climate changes recorded in Greenland were matched by those in the tropics and seemed to correlate directly with El Nino or La Nina conditions. 

The El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, cyclically receives heat from the earth. The causes for this heat are mentioned below. As ENSO releases heat into the atmosphere, the atmosphere conducts the heat to cooler places on the planet.

The cooler places on the planet are the polar permafrosts, glaciers and ice caps. Since the atmosphere is acting as a thermal conductor, it does not heat up itself. Instead, the heat transported from the equatorial regions by ENSO is absorbed by the ice and results in thawing of the permafrost and melting of the glaciers and ice caps. The thawing permafrost and glaciers, in turn, release carbon dioxide and methane stored from the last advance of ice known as the Pleistocene Period.Notice that the carbon dioxide rate of increase closely mirrors the ENSO variations. Carbon dioxide increase occurs during summer months and mainly in the polar most latitudes. This points to the thawing permafrost, melting glaciers, and shrinking Polar ice caps as having a key role of carbon dioxide emissions. This is not to say that the increase in carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is caused by nature. The extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mostly comes from pumping sequestered carbon in the form of hydrocarbons and coal into the biosphere.  Why do thawing permafrost and melting polar ice caps increase the rate of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere? Because there was a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the time the glaciers were formed. Also, there was abundant vegetation in the polar regions, vegetation that has been frozen but is now decomposing and thus releasing more carbon dioxide (and other gases such as methane) back into the carbon cycle. Human consumption of carbon dioxide is fairly consistent, but nature adds carbon dioxide back into the biosphere during periods of ice thaw, thus the carbon dioxide growth rate varies with natural cycles.During past ice ages, the tropical Pacific Ocean behaved rather as it does today in an El Niño event, bringing downpours to some places and drought to others, say US researchers. The link might help us to understand and predict how and why the Earth's climate can change rapidly.Dr. Dan Walker at the University of Hawai'i has noticed a strong correlation between seismic activity on the East Pacific Rise (which he presumes indicates an eruption) and El Nino cycles over the past ~25 years. It is the belief of Dr. Walker and others that large numbers of underwater volcanoes contribute toward the heating of the oceans. There were 56 volcanoes having confirmed eruptions in 2001-2002. There is no doubt that volcanoes produce heat, and over 3/4 of the yearly magma budget occurs under our world oceans. Add to the underwater magma the number of hydrothermal vents and there certainly could be enough heat to make a difference. Major factors contributing to volcanic activity are explained in the Terracycle theory as solar activity, thawing ice, and daily tides. According to the Terracycles theory, volcanic activity should gradually peak toward the time when super storms are possible.The glaciers are melting at a fast rate releasing more liquid water into the oceans every day. The Pacific Plate is only a little more than 6 miles thick with nearly 2.5 miles average depth of ocean resting on it. The Pacific Plate is nearly entirely covered by the Pacific Ocean. It is like holding a large flat pan of water and having someone continually add water to it, causing the pan to become more and more unstable. Each day the Earth revolves, the ocean tides sweep a large mass of water from east to west across the Pacific Plate. The tides thus transfer gravitational energy from the sun and moon through to the Pacific plates, storing this energy little by little until a trigger causes the energy to be released as an earthquake and at the same time driving the tectonic plate movements.As the Sun and Moon appear to rise over the Pacific, large volumes of water are pulled against the American coasts. As the Sun and Moon appear to set in the West large amounts of water are pulled against the South Pacific Islands and Asian countries causing a repetitious pulsing and stretching of the Pacific Plate. The Western Pacific Plate is being pushed under the Asian Continent and the Nazca Plate (Eastern Pacific) is being pushed under the South American Continent by this daily pulsing. The effect is dramatic and can easily be seen on a bathymetric map. (Bathymetric and topographical maps) The Nazca and Pacific Plates are the fastest spreading seafloor on the planet. The increase in ocean level from melting glaciers and ice caps is slowly accelerating the process by adding water mass to the daily tides. The added instability causes earthquakes and volcanic action, ultimately bringing more heat and carbon dioxide to the troposphere and contributing along with solar radiation to the cycle of glacial melting.In addition, the daily rotation of our planet, under the influence of lunar and solar gravity, causes a pressure wave to travel daily around the earth with four peaks (each at 90º intervals). These daily pressure waves can release the stored energy from the tides. E.D.G. has been researching pressure waves for several years as a means for predicting earthquakes.The positive feedback of "volcanic heating atmospheric heating through El Niño glacial melting increased ocean levels increased volcanic activity" contributes to the thermal momentum of the Terracycle. That is, all of these cycles feedback into each other to increase the Earth's surface temperature until something comes along to take the heat away.In the oceans, carbon dioxide exchange is largely controlled by sea surface temperatures, circulating currents, and by the biological processes of photosynthesis and respiration. carbon dioxide can dissolve easily into the ocean and the amount of carbon dioxide that the ocean can hold depends on ocean temperature and the amount of carbon dioxide already present. Cold ocean temperatures favor the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere whereas warm temperatures can cause the ocean surface to release carbon dioxide. - NASA Earth ObservatoryMore thermal momentum arises from the carbon cycle and especially from human carbon consumption. As the glacial ice and permafrost melt, more sequestered carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. As ocean temperatures rise more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere.So it is seen that a combination of increasing thermal effects contribute greatly to the thawing of earth's ice. When the human contribution to global warming is discussed, usually it refers to the amount of sequestered carbon we bring up from the ground in the form of hydrocarbons. Our contribution to carbon dioxide cycle is noteworthy on two accounts. We contribute about 5% of all the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere every day (the rest is released into the atmosphere by non-human causes but is also recycled back out of the atmosphere by other non-human causes.) The second part of this is that the carbon we release into the atmosphere used to be part of the atmosphere when the planet had a much more stable climate. All the coal, natural gas, and oil came from asteroid-initiated, mass-burials of an ancient and rich biosphere.  When large ancient asteroids hit the earth, enormous clouds of dust and radiation went into the atmosphere and killed off most life on the planet. This dust settled and much of the carbon from animals and plants was buried and eventually became our present day hydrocarbon and coal fuels. Before the asteroid impacts, the earth was much warmer due to a greater concentration of carbon in the biosphere. But when large amounts of carbon were sequestered under the ground, the earth became cooler and eventually drifted into an ice age.  Under normal circumstances, it would take about 100 million years for the tectonic plates to recycle and thus burn up the hydrocarbons in the mantle and release them as carbon dioxide through volcanoes. It could very well be that humans are contributing to global warming. But we are also cutting out about 30 to 40 million years of slow tectonic movements necessary for returning the earth to its normal state.Perhaps we are not looking at the human contribution to global stability in the correct way. Maybe we need to bring up even more sequestered carbon from within the earth? Only by directing science toward a complete Terracycle research program and investigating the possibility of terra forming our own planet (by regulating hydrocarbon mining) can we say for certain whether anthropomorphic carbon production is good or bad. 

La Nina, a spin-off of the current historically potent El Nino, is expected later this year.Most weather experts say it is simply too early predict WHEN this La Nina will develop.IF the change from El Nino to La Nina in the Pacific comes early in the summer, that could mean a larger-than-usual number of hurricanes in the Atlantic. Las Ninas generally have favored Atlantic hurricanes.IF the change comes later in the summer or early fall, that could mean fewer hurricanes---based on historic El Nino and La Nina patterns.The CBS News website, through "The CBS Evening News", will be posting more information about the expected La Nina and it's predicted effects on all parts of the country as more information becomes available.[Brian Norcross, our "CBS Evening News" special weather consultant in Miami contributed mightily to this. Norcross is a nationally-recognized expert on hurricanes.] "The CBS Evening News", traditionally strong in all weather coverage but most especially with hurricanes, has several hurricane experts as special consultants. They include, besides Norcross, Dr Neil Frank, now in Houston , who for years was at the Miami U.S. Weather Service Hurricane Center and is globally recognized as a hurricane authority.Dr Michael McPhaden is a Ph.D. Research Oceanographer for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration based in Seattle. He is generally credited with being among the first, if not THE first, expert to warn that the current El Nino was building to unusually large dimensions in the Pacific.His findings are part of the reason "The CBS Evening News" jumped so hard on the story about the middle of last year, and has stayed on it so consistently [in the face of ridicule, early on, from competitors]."The CBS Evening News has stayed in touched with Dr. McPhaden over succeeding months. He has been interviewed a number of times by "The CBS Evening News."McPhaden told CBS News:This is a "classic El Nino", so we should expedct the current weather pattern to continue through the winter and into spring.There is a kind of constant "conveyor belt" of storms lined up out in the Pacific, pointed at California and surrounding areas of the U.S. West Coast. On this "conveyor belt", storms will just keep coming.Right now, we are going through a very intense period, especially in California. In the near to medium-range future the intensity of West Coast storms may wane and there may be periods of nice sunny weather. BUT, the storms WILL continue. The "conveyor belt" will keep moving them in.This, in turn, means more periods of unusual weather for most sections of the United States. Generally drier and warmer in the Midwest. Wetter in the Southwest and South.Predicting the upper U.S. northwest and the eastern quadrant of the country is trickier. Perhaps somewhat warmer wintr weather in those sections, overall-but again, such predictions are the most unreliable.The northeast U.S. is THE hardest section to predict, when it comes to El Nino's effects.

Selama dekade terakhir ini El Nino muncul pada tahun 1991, 1994, dan 1997. Kita tidak mungkin mencegah kehadiran El Nino, tetapi kita dapat meminimalkan dampak dan kerugian yang ditimbulkannya.

Keadaan sebaliknya adalah peristiwa La Nina yaitu mendinginya suhu muka laut di atas rata-ratanya di daerah tersebut.

Menarik kan ^o^