The Pacific Pendulum: Why El Niño Erupts Once a Decade
The Pacific pendulum swings irregularly. Sometimes it barely trembles near the bottom, and sometimes it suddenly makes a giant sweep that disrupts weather across the planet. El Niño, the warm current in the equatorial Pacific, recurs every few years, but truly strong events happen once every 10–20 years, and until now no one could explain why they appear so irregularly.