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How El Nino Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there, and
0:17
Speaker 1: we got this guy. I am El Nino Tall other
0:22
Speaker 1: tropical storms must bow before Nino. Po si nno. But
0:30
Speaker 1: those of you who don't have la espanio, El Nino
0:35
Speaker 1: is Spanish for Nino. That was the late great Chris
0:43
Speaker 1: Farley on Saturday Live back in the winter early spring
0:49
Speaker 1: of when all anyone can talk about was El Nino. Yeah.
0:53
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to select to play. Uh
0:57
Speaker 1: wave of mutilation by the Pixies. Is that about? Uh,
1:01
Speaker 1: it's in the It's in the lyric of Kiss, Mermaids
1:04
Speaker 1: Road Deal Nino walk the sands with the crustaceans. I
1:07
Speaker 1: never realized that's what he was saying. Yeah, but writing
1:10
Speaker 1: Neilno as sort of as you'll see, it's not a
1:14
Speaker 1: way it's wrong. Black Francis, you know you were wrong, Charles.
1:18
Speaker 1: Can we call him Charles Frank, But in the Pixies
1:23
Speaker 1: he was black Francis. Yeah, he's back to black. Yeah Frank,
1:26
Speaker 1: black black Frank, black man. I saw him in Uh,
1:31
Speaker 1: that you and I are both lifelong Pixies fans, obviously,
1:34
Speaker 1: but I saw him do a solo show. Uh. May
1:38
Speaker 1: have been with the Catholics, even in a tiny little
1:41
Speaker 1: bar in l A when I lived there and there
1:43
Speaker 1: were I couldn't figure it out they were. I mean,
1:47
Speaker 1: it's not like seventy people. I was like, why are
1:50
Speaker 1: you playing here? And why aren't there a thousand other
1:53
Speaker 1: people trying to get in here illegally? And he you know,
1:57
Speaker 1: he's eight feet in front of me. Well, I mean
2:00
Speaker 1: the Catholics were okay, but oh man, those albums are great.
2:03
Speaker 1: Not door busting great. Oh I think that the Catholics
2:06
Speaker 1: albums are really good. I like just playing numbers. Well, okay,
2:12
Speaker 1: you know anyway, great show. Rode, Yeah, I know exactly
2:20
Speaker 1: the line you're talking about. But I never realized Rode Nino.
2:24
Speaker 1: He pronounces things oddly. Maybe he thought he yeah, I
2:28
Speaker 1: don't know, I think that it was like Nino or
2:30
Speaker 1: something like that. Or maybe he didn't mean the weather phenomenon.
2:33
Speaker 1: Maybe he meant he got on the back of a
2:36
Speaker 1: small boy and wrote around or the course or the
2:39
Speaker 1: christ Child. Maybe because if you live in Spain or
2:42
Speaker 1: Spanish speaking country, and you turn on say the weather channel. Uh,
2:47
Speaker 1: they will say things like, well, the christ Child is
2:50
Speaker 1: going to be way worse than the last time the
2:53
Speaker 1: christ Child came around. That's what they say. Because El Nino,
2:56
Speaker 1: we should say, when it's capitalized means the cry child,
3:00
Speaker 1: that's right. If it's lower case, it just means the
3:02
Speaker 1: boy in Spanish, but uppercase the baby Jesus. Yeah, and uh,
3:08
Speaker 1: I never knew this until we researched this. Uh In Peru,
3:12
Speaker 1: the Spanish colonizers coined that term when they discovered this
3:16
Speaker 1: phenomenon themselves around Christmas. So how about that? Yeah, it
3:22
Speaker 1: was pretty cool, I guess. And we should mention historically
3:26
Speaker 1: this is nothing new. Uh No, they written records date
3:31
Speaker 1: back to fifty and again of course, and there are
3:37
Speaker 1: there's geological evidence that dates it back possibly if you
3:42
Speaker 1: like Harvard Science as much as uh A hundred and
3:46
Speaker 1: twenty four thousand years, because some scientists there are one
3:50
Speaker 1: in particular examined annual deposits on Indonesian coral and said, hey,
3:55
Speaker 1: I think this is this coral looks like it was
3:58
Speaker 1: affected by El Nino d and four thousand years like
4:01
Speaker 1: they I also saw they found evidence that um a
4:05
Speaker 1: very early um Peruvian culture collapsed because of the climate
4:11
Speaker 1: change brought about by El Nio. Interesting based on some
4:14
Speaker 1: like the disappearance of some certain mollusk varieties. Yeah, pretty
4:18
Speaker 1: cool stuff. So nothing new. We should probably tell people
4:21
Speaker 1: if you don't know what El Nino is, what el
4:23
Speaker 1: Nino is? Do you want see? Sure? I do like
4:27
Speaker 1: I do with lots of things that don't understand. I
4:29
Speaker 1: go to kids science websites. Yeah. I found one and said,
4:33
Speaker 1: I was like, huh. I was reading this article three
4:35
Speaker 1: times and I got to the bottom and it said
4:38
Speaker 1: fifth grade Earth Science module. I was like, man, it
4:41
Speaker 1: really helps. Uh. And that's just a tip from us
4:44
Speaker 1: to you if you're a dumb adult, and then go
4:46
Speaker 1: look to kids websites fifth grade about right there. Alright,
4:51
Speaker 1: So here's the deal. Temperatures world Global temperatures depend a
4:56
Speaker 1: lot on the ocean. Uh. Weather period. It depends a
5:00
Speaker 1: lot on the temperature of the oceans. So if you
5:04
Speaker 1: have a warm ocean, you're gonna have more rain in
5:07
Speaker 1: that area, right Uh. And in the Pacific Ocean near
5:10
Speaker 1: the equator, for the equatorial region where it's warm. Where
5:14
Speaker 1: it's warm, you're gonna have the sun baking that water
5:17
Speaker 1: on the surface, making it warmer, right, and then that
5:20
Speaker 1: the rain that water heats up the air right above it.
5:24
Speaker 1: That air rises, taking some of the moisture with it,
5:28
Speaker 1: and it rises up meets cooler, drier air in the
5:31
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere, that water vapor condenses and turns into rain.
5:35
Speaker 1: There's your tropical thunderstorm boom. So that's part one, right.
5:38
Speaker 1: And then in the Pacific specifically, there is a patch
5:42
Speaker 1: of warm water that usually gets blown from the Eastern
5:46
Speaker 1: Pacific to the Western Pacific, usually like clockwork. And when
5:49
Speaker 1: that happens, everything is normal. Yes, these are trade winds
5:52
Speaker 1: and they blow usually pretty consistently, but not always. Sometimes
5:58
Speaker 1: they uh don't blow was heavy, and sometimes they change direction. Yeah,
6:02
Speaker 1: So if the trade wind isn't blowing this warm water,
6:06
Speaker 1: the rotation of the Earth on its axis actually pushes
6:09
Speaker 1: the warm water towards the east rather than towards the west.
6:13
Speaker 1: And when everything is normal and the trade winds blow
6:16
Speaker 1: this warm water to the west, uh, in the wintertime,
6:19
Speaker 1: the rainy season comes to places like East Asia, right, Yeah,
6:24
Speaker 1: and then western Peru, the Eastern Pacific. It's kind of confusing,
6:29
Speaker 1: so just refer to a map. As we're talking, um
6:32
Speaker 1: is normally dry and cool, right, But if the trade
6:35
Speaker 1: winds aren't there, like you say, to push that warm
6:37
Speaker 1: water along, that warm water stays right where it is
6:41
Speaker 1: off the coast of Peru in the eastern Pacific, and
6:44
Speaker 1: all the weather in the world starts to change. And
6:47
Speaker 1: this is what's called El Nino. That's right. And el
6:50
Speaker 1: nino isn't It's not something that just affects that one
6:54
Speaker 1: region out in the middle of nowhere in the ocean.
6:57
Speaker 1: It affects climate, well, not climate, but whether all over
7:00
Speaker 1: the world. Uh, in the US, um what you usually see.
7:05
Speaker 1: And we'll talk more about this current El Nino that
7:07
Speaker 1: we're in because we're in one winter, but typically in
7:13
Speaker 1: the US it's gonna bean cooler and wetter weather in
7:16
Speaker 1: the southern part of the United States, warmer weather in
7:20
Speaker 1: the upper Midwest and Pacific northwest in Alaska. U A
7:24
Speaker 1: fewer hurricanes, more typhoons globally, fewer Atlantic hurricanes, more Pacific typhoons.
7:31
Speaker 1: I think, aren't they one and the same, like a
7:33
Speaker 1: hurricane and a typhoon is just depending on where in
7:35
Speaker 1: the world they are. I don't know, I think so, Yeah,
7:39
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure. It depends on what you call it.
7:40
Speaker 1: I guess we're gonna find out all right around the world. Um,
7:45
Speaker 1: in Southeast Asia where it's um warm and dry. In
7:50
Speaker 1: places like Australia, Uh, it's gonna be well warm and dry,
7:55
Speaker 1: right like it can be dangerously dry, yes conditions right,
7:59
Speaker 1: it'll it drier than normal because that that rain, the
8:03
Speaker 1: rainy season isn't being brought over there by the trade
8:06
Speaker 1: winds that yearly Southern Africa warm and dry, Central Africa wetter,
8:12
Speaker 1: and then South America is sort of all over the place, um,
8:16
Speaker 1: depending on where you are, from dry in the northeast
8:18
Speaker 1: to wet in the west and south. So those are
8:21
Speaker 1: the those are what ELNA will mean when it happens.
8:25
Speaker 1: Usually the thing is um. This happens every two to
8:30
Speaker 1: seven years, supposedly, UM. And it's actually only in fairly
8:35
Speaker 1: recent times, since the early eighties, that science has really
8:39
Speaker 1: sat up and paid attention to this, and it was
8:41
Speaker 1: because they got caught off guard by one UM the
8:45
Speaker 1: But throughout the study over the last like thirty something years,
8:50
Speaker 1: we still don't have any idea what causes the trade
8:52
Speaker 1: winds to stop. Basically some years that produces el Nino UM.
8:58
Speaker 1: And that's a huge mystery and one that really if
9:01
Speaker 1: we could solve that, we could figure it out, then
9:04
Speaker 1: we could probably predict El Nino even further out, which is,
9:07
Speaker 1: as we'll see, would save lives absolutely. Uh, well, why
9:11
Speaker 1: don't we take a quick break here and we'll come
9:13
Speaker 1: back and um talk a little bit more about the process.
9:35
Speaker 1: All right, So you said every two to seven years, Yes,
9:37
Speaker 1: I did, El Nino comes on stage and takes a bow.
9:40
Speaker 1: Since we are the Pixies. Seriously, if you haven't seen
9:43
Speaker 1: that Chris Farley bit, just go watch it. It's hilarious.
9:47
Speaker 1: He's got like Carmen Miranda arm bands on and his
9:51
Speaker 1: shirt and it's great. He liked to take his shirt off.
9:54
Speaker 1: Didn't Yeah he did. He got laughs. So it took
9:57
Speaker 1: We were talking about how El Nino um A afect
10:00
Speaker 1: to weather, not just around like eastern Peru or making
10:02
Speaker 1: it drier in Southeast Asia or Australia UM. And the
10:07
Speaker 1: reason that it affects weather around the world is because
10:10
Speaker 1: of the jet streams. There's a bunch of them and
10:13
Speaker 1: basically the jet streams are where the stratosphere and the
10:15
Speaker 1: troposphere meat. And uh, it's just to put really even
10:22
Speaker 1: like less than fifth grade scientis. They're like rivers of
10:26
Speaker 1: fast moving air in already moving air. It's a jet
10:29
Speaker 1: stream basically up in the atmosphere, and they're basically like
10:33
Speaker 1: conveyor belts around the world. They moved from west to east, right,
10:36
Speaker 1: and they push things like warm air and cool air
10:39
Speaker 1: and high pressure and low pressure in fronts and all
10:41
Speaker 1: over the world. And when these things encounter other fronts
10:45
Speaker 1: that are already there, they form weather, right or And
10:49
Speaker 1: it's weird to think of weather as the lack of something,
10:52
Speaker 1: but but having say, cool, dry weather, that's still that's
10:56
Speaker 1: still weather. Usually think of weather as an event like
10:59
Speaker 1: a thunderstorm or tornado or something like that. But weather
11:02
Speaker 1: it can also be unusually dry or unusually cool weather too. Yeah. Weather,
11:07
Speaker 1: it's just however it is right now? Is weather. It's
11:10
Speaker 1: it's very it's very mellow. Uh. And the jet stream,
11:16
Speaker 1: because of its massive power, can affect, uh, like like
11:21
Speaker 1: thousands of miles away, things that you wouldn't think might
11:23
Speaker 1: be affected or affected. Yeah, And so depending on where
11:26
Speaker 1: you are in a jet stream, jet streams are characterized
11:28
Speaker 1: by um troughs and ridges, right. And if you're underneath
11:32
Speaker 1: a ridge, things usually tend to stay warm and dry,
11:36
Speaker 1: and if you're under a trough, it's usually cold and wet. So,
11:41
Speaker 1: like you said, inn Alnno, the southeastern United States usually
11:46
Speaker 1: sitting right underneath a trough in the jet stream, which
11:50
Speaker 1: means it's colder and mother than usual. Right, Yeah, well
11:54
Speaker 1: that's why because of the jet stream, people blame it
11:57
Speaker 1: on the Alnno, and the Alnno started the whole thing
12:00
Speaker 1: like this, this weather wouldn't be happening. But the reason
12:03
Speaker 1: that al Nino is distributed throughout the the world is
12:06
Speaker 1: because of the jet stream. So it's this very extraordinarily
12:10
Speaker 1: complex system working in concert with one another to wreak havoc. Yes,
12:14
Speaker 1: for the most part, el Nino. You know, we said
12:18
Speaker 1: every two to seven years is when we get one.
12:22
Speaker 1: And um, climatologists and weather people and meteorologist what else
12:28
Speaker 1: can I call them? Um uh weather bugs, weather bugs.
12:34
Speaker 1: They look at patterns and you can't just say anytime
12:37
Speaker 1: like oh, things are heating up a little bit, it's
12:38
Speaker 1: al Nino. Their specific conditions, Um, they look in particular
12:43
Speaker 1: and you can say that, but you'll get shouted down,
12:46
Speaker 1: you know. Meteorologist. Yeah, they love shouting. Um. They look
12:51
Speaker 1: at ocean tibatures, mainly in the Pacific, and when they
12:54
Speaker 1: find a point nine degree fahrenheit or point five degrees
12:58
Speaker 1: celsius right is in the water, and then the conditions
13:02
Speaker 1: start to sort of act like we're talking about before
13:05
Speaker 1: with the wind um, they say, all right, let's take
13:08
Speaker 1: a look at this and start charting at everybody, and
13:10
Speaker 1: everyone gets real excited in the office. And what they
13:13
Speaker 1: need is five overlapping three month periods for that to
13:17
Speaker 1: be officially classified as Elnno. Otherwise it's just like you said, weather,
13:22
Speaker 1: but it all starts with the sea surface temperature. Um.
13:26
Speaker 1: That's what they call it, staying warmer, being warmer than usual. Yeah.
13:30
Speaker 1: And right now we are officially in the strongest El
13:34
Speaker 1: Nino on record, Yes, at a three point one degree
13:39
Speaker 1: rise fahrenheit and peak wow. And like El Nino conditions
13:43
Speaker 1: start at point nine degrees yeah, and we're at three
13:46
Speaker 1: point one yeah. And one of the other we'll talk
13:48
Speaker 1: about some of the other big ones, but the one
13:50
Speaker 1: in UH I believe that Chris Farley referenced was that
13:55
Speaker 1: peaked at two point eight. So this is officially the strongest,
13:59
Speaker 1: although it's not really having the same result as what
14:03
Speaker 1: you would imagine as the strongest, right, so you you
14:06
Speaker 1: would guess and you would probably be um, you wouldn't
14:10
Speaker 1: be shouted at in the meteor meteorological conference if you
14:14
Speaker 1: guess this. But warmer weather, warmer surface CE Service temperatures
14:19
Speaker 1: should lead to worse weather conditions, drier Indonesia, whether in
14:25
Speaker 1: the southeastern United States, and that's just not happening this time.
14:29
Speaker 1: Well it is, but not to the degree that they
14:31
Speaker 1: thought it would, right, but not even not even to
14:34
Speaker 1: the degree where, oh this is this is just slightly
14:37
Speaker 1: worse than it was in It's actually not nearly as
14:40
Speaker 1: bad as it was in like even though the ce
14:42
Speaker 1: Service temperature is higher, and they can't explain that either, No,
14:45
Speaker 1: they can't, and they're blaming it on climate change. They're
14:47
Speaker 1: saying it's climate change is definitely doing something what exactly
14:51
Speaker 1: we don't know. And again, the whole thing dates back
14:54
Speaker 1: to the or the whole study of it dates back
14:56
Speaker 1: to UM nine two eight three season. Right, Yeah, that
15:01
Speaker 1: was when UH meteorology was in its infancy, right, well,
15:06
Speaker 1: not exactly but sort of, because they had an al
15:09
Speaker 1: Nenio year then and they thought, hey, I think what's
15:12
Speaker 1: going on. Is this volcano Mexico l Chon erupted and
15:17
Speaker 1: that's wreaking havoc everywhere. That's gotta be what it is. Yeah,
15:20
Speaker 1: they later were like, oh wait a minute, things are
15:23
Speaker 1: normal now. It wasn't the volcano, it's what what could
15:27
Speaker 1: it be? Well, the well And the reason that it
15:29
Speaker 1: really got their attention is by the time the al
15:31
Speaker 1: Neno conditions ended, there was like eighty billion dollars worth
15:35
Speaker 1: of damage worldwide, property damage I think um and something
15:39
Speaker 1: like two thousand people had lost their lives. So it
15:42
Speaker 1: really made these meteorologist sit up and take notice. And
15:46
Speaker 1: so agencies like Noah started to drop booi's in the
15:51
Speaker 1: Pacific Ocean. They started um using weather balloons to study
15:55
Speaker 1: air temperatures in the area and really started tracking the
15:59
Speaker 1: whole thing to see what was going on into to
16:02
Speaker 1: notice any changes. And that's when like El Nino study
16:05
Speaker 1: really started in earnest uh. Yeah. And there's also we
16:08
Speaker 1: should mention La Nina, which is what's known as his
16:11
Speaker 1: sister to El Nino, appropriately titled, and that is when
16:15
Speaker 1: the trade winds actually picked back up and are stronger
16:18
Speaker 1: than normal. Right, And the fact that it's capitalized suggests
16:21
Speaker 1: that it's the girl christ child, right. I guess maybe
16:26
Speaker 1: El Nino La Nina both capitalized. I don't know, a
16:30
Speaker 1: little odd uh, and each of these phenomenon are about
16:33
Speaker 1: nine to twelve months long, uh, developing the spring. They
16:37
Speaker 1: peeked in the autumn or winter, and then weekend in
16:39
Speaker 1: the following spring and early summer. So like right now,
16:44
Speaker 1: when this El Nino, when they finally were like, all right,
16:46
Speaker 1: we're getting another El Nino, everyone in southern California, We're
16:50
Speaker 1: was jumping up and down because they're uh in the
16:52
Speaker 1: midst of a long drought, and they thought, we're gonna
16:55
Speaker 1: get tons of rain like we did ninety seven, and
16:58
Speaker 1: it's going to really help fill the coughs. And it
17:01
Speaker 1: just hasn't banned out that way. They got a lot
17:03
Speaker 1: of rain in January, but nothing compared to California really
17:09
Speaker 1: angered God. When they elected Schwartzeneger, what it was you
17:14
Speaker 1: would pay and chuck um, I think you said La
17:18
Speaker 1: Nina doesn't always follow Al Nino. I don't think so. Well,
17:21
Speaker 1: it doesn't always follow El Nino. It's not guaranteed that
17:24
Speaker 1: when you have El Nino, you're going to have La Nina.
17:27
Speaker 1: But la nin Yeah, it's basically the opposite. The trade
17:29
Speaker 1: winds not only blow the way they're supposed to, they
17:32
Speaker 1: blow even more than ever before. And it's really crazy
17:36
Speaker 1: dry where it's supposed to be. It's really crazy wet
17:39
Speaker 1: where it's supposed to be wet um. And then there's
17:42
Speaker 1: a period in between, a neutral period where nothing's freaky.
17:46
Speaker 1: That's called regular weather. Right. And if you put all
17:49
Speaker 1: this together El Nino, the neutral period and La nin Ya,
17:53
Speaker 1: you have what's called the El Nino Southern oscillation or
17:56
Speaker 1: and so, which if you are a weather bug or
17:58
Speaker 1: a meteorologist, this is probably how you refer to El
18:02
Speaker 1: Nino as the uh Eleno Southern oscillations. Yes, very nice,
18:08
Speaker 1: and so do you want to take a break. Let's
18:11
Speaker 1: take a break, Okay, all right, So we talked about
18:32
Speaker 1: some of the effects on local weather in different parts
18:37
Speaker 1: of the world for Elena, but that is uh not
18:40
Speaker 1: the only issue we we talked about. It wreaking havoc.
18:42
Speaker 1: It's not just oh it's raining a lot and it
18:44
Speaker 1: shouldn't be, or oh it's super dry, like devastating effects,
18:49
Speaker 1: billions of dollars and lives loss globally all over the place,
18:54
Speaker 1: so the Chris Farley one, let's just call it the
18:57
Speaker 1: Farley Alenia. Um, by the time that was over, I
19:02
Speaker 1: think you said earlier thirty three billion dollars in damage.
19:06
Speaker 1: Oh I thought it was like eighty billion. I'm sorry,
19:08
Speaker 1: I I I exaggerated. Maybe it would be eighty billion today. No,
19:13
Speaker 1: I was talking about the early eighties when I said
19:15
Speaker 1: eighty billion. I see now it's eight billion wrong, So
19:19
Speaker 1: please go ahead. There's still a lot of money. So
19:21
Speaker 1: thirty three billion in damage for half a billion in
19:25
Speaker 1: California alone, and uh, it's a you know, a big deal.
19:30
Speaker 1: If you're an island in the Pacific, you rely on
19:32
Speaker 1: that rain for life, for fresh water, Yeah, wash your hair, sure,
19:37
Speaker 1: all that jazz so food crops they're gonna suffer. Well yeah,
19:42
Speaker 1: I mean drought is really bad for it. But also
19:45
Speaker 1: so it is too much rain too can actually ruin
19:48
Speaker 1: crops um, it's all. It also has a tremendous effect
19:51
Speaker 1: on um like property as well. Oh yeah, I mean
19:55
Speaker 1: if you live on this side of a hill in
19:57
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, you might slide off of that hill and
20:00
Speaker 1: into the ocean below. Yeah. Where was that one? Um,
20:03
Speaker 1: there's a place in I think in the eighties. Oh yeah,
20:07
Speaker 1: in Peru. There is a place in Peru that normally
20:11
Speaker 1: gets about six inches of rain. Oh yeah, that one. Yeah,
20:14
Speaker 1: And for the nineteen eighty two eighty three El Nino,
20:17
Speaker 1: it got eleven feet. Yeah. You can't normally get how
20:21
Speaker 1: many inches six six inches and go to eleven feet
20:25
Speaker 1: and not have like serious damage done. Right, And for
20:27
Speaker 1: those of you not in the US or Liberia who
20:30
Speaker 1: weren't just like, wow, normally as place in Prue gets
20:33
Speaker 1: six fifteen centimeters of rain, and they got three meters
20:37
Speaker 1: of rain that year. Now, everybody's duly impressed. Uh. Fisheries
20:43
Speaker 1: are also affected. Um, this is one that I did
20:45
Speaker 1: not know. Anchovies. I love that cold water off the
20:49
Speaker 1: coast of Peru. But when that cold water is not there,
20:52
Speaker 1: they say, I'm swimming to where it's cold. And so
20:55
Speaker 1: fisheries either scramble to make up for that in other ways,
21:01
Speaker 1: or if they get warning like they get now, they say, hey,
21:05
Speaker 1: why don't we fish for something that likes cold water
21:07
Speaker 1: and shrimp a little baby krill and shrimp shrimp, because
21:11
Speaker 1: you can do a lot of different stuff with shrimp.
21:13
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, Oh boy, would
21:15
Speaker 1: you like me to list them off, No, Bubba gump.
21:19
Speaker 1: So uh, it's also affects just the health of individuals.
21:24
Speaker 1: UM disease carrying rodents and insects, are you know, gonna
21:28
Speaker 1: be more prolific in the wet weather. Malaria UM is
21:32
Speaker 1: going to increase when it's unusually wet and warm, and
21:36
Speaker 1: when it is and usually wet and warm, things like
21:39
Speaker 1: diseases tend to spread a lot more easily. Mosquitoes breed
21:44
Speaker 1: very easily, Yeah, which would account for the malaria right threefold? Right,
21:49
Speaker 1: did you say threefold increase in Not in Peru, there
21:54
Speaker 1: was a threefold increase in malaria because there were just
21:59
Speaker 1: that many more miss squito's biting people. Yeah, and that's
22:01
Speaker 1: wet conditions. UM in Indonesia had twenty four million acres
22:08
Speaker 1: or seven point seven million hector's, like that of of
22:16
Speaker 1: unchecked forest fires. Yeah, that's that's devastating to the region.
22:21
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and it was because again they're expecting a
22:24
Speaker 1: rainy season and instead they got a drought, and Indonesia
22:27
Speaker 1: in particular got well, it got screwed over by nature. Okay,
22:31
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna come out and say it. Because they
22:34
Speaker 1: had the warm conditions from uh, the from Southeast Asia
22:40
Speaker 1: pushing into their that area, and then well they're in
22:43
Speaker 1: Southeast Asia. But the majority of Southeast Asia got warmer
22:46
Speaker 1: than usual conditions, and then Australia had drier than usual conditions,
22:52
Speaker 1: and these two conditions pushed together and overlapped and made
22:55
Speaker 1: a Venn diagram, and that the center of the Venn
22:58
Speaker 1: diagram fell directly over Indonesia. So Indonesia was like, we
23:03
Speaker 1: didn't ellect Schwarzenegger, what's going on? And uh it burned
23:09
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, Yeah, twenty four million acres.
23:11
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. Uh, California, Southern California, it's not over for
23:15
Speaker 1: you yet. Uh. They said that there could still be
23:18
Speaker 1: some rough storms into March. But um, you're not going
23:23
Speaker 1: to solve your drought problem, even if it was a
23:25
Speaker 1: strong al neno, you know, or if the strong almenio
23:30
Speaker 1: led to like like massive amounts of rain. Well supposedly,
23:33
Speaker 1: also when you get a lot of rain to um,
23:36
Speaker 1: it's really dangerous because if you've been through a drought
23:39
Speaker 1: too much at once. Yes, because tree roots during a
23:42
Speaker 1: drought come back up towards the surface because they're trying
23:45
Speaker 1: to get all the water they can. So these trees
23:47
Speaker 1: have shallow roots, so in influx or delusion of water
23:51
Speaker 1: just goes right underneath the trees and they fall over. Yeah,
23:54
Speaker 1: that happened in Atlanta a few years ago. And I
23:58
Speaker 1: may have even told the story of the guy who
24:00
Speaker 1: got killed in front of my house. Oh yeah, you did.
24:03
Speaker 1: I forgot about that. I mean, thirty ft in front
24:05
Speaker 1: of my house. A tree fell on a guy's truck. Death,
24:10
Speaker 1: I know, And I think about that every time. We
24:12
Speaker 1: have like massive amounts of rain for days and days
24:16
Speaker 1: at a time, and I start to see trees down
24:18
Speaker 1: when I'm driving, I start to look around, you know,
24:22
Speaker 1: pay attention. Not that there's much you can do. No,
24:25
Speaker 1: I mean maybe if he saw a tree falling, you
24:26
Speaker 1: could jet out of there. But you know, you gotta
24:29
Speaker 1: go the right way. It's true, you know, the tree
24:33
Speaker 1: is a large swath. There was an actress in Chicago.
24:37
Speaker 1: She's on TV. I don't remember what show, but she
24:39
Speaker 1: was riding her biking. A tree fell over and killed her.
24:42
Speaker 1: Tree falling over and killing you randomly is the like
24:47
Speaker 1: your number is up. There's there's how how can you
24:51
Speaker 1: think of the universe as being that random? It just
24:54
Speaker 1: it almost is like, I know, like fate showing its hand, Like, yeah,
24:58
Speaker 1: you're sitting at a stop fly and the tree falls
25:00
Speaker 1: in your car and kills you, then that's definitely. Or
25:04
Speaker 1: physically moving past the Triana bike and it falls over.
25:07
Speaker 1: The timing is that perfect that it kills you. There
25:10
Speaker 1: was some movie where, uh, some one of those disaster
25:13
Speaker 1: movies where these large towers were falling and you know,
25:17
Speaker 1: people were trying to outrun it by going like north
25:20
Speaker 1: or the same direction. I can't remember what it was,
25:23
Speaker 1: but I just remember thinking like just go left or right.
25:27
Speaker 1: It's the same things, like don't go into the house.
25:30
Speaker 1: No reason for you to go into the house. It's
25:32
Speaker 1: just it's their movie tropes. I get it. Yeah, Uh,
25:35
Speaker 1: do you have anything else or yeah. So we talked
25:38
Speaker 1: a little bit about climate change, um, affecting al Nino
25:41
Speaker 1: and and like the general consensus is that yes, it
25:45
Speaker 1: is going to affect al Nino. It's already affecting all Nino,
25:49
Speaker 1: and unsettlingly, it's affecting al Nino in ways that are
25:52
Speaker 1: wildly unpredictable to the current models we have right. Um,
25:56
Speaker 1: and there's this, uh, this blogger on climate dot gov
26:00
Speaker 1: named Tim de Liberto. I'm probably over pronouncing his name
26:03
Speaker 1: a little bit, but he uh hes, he likens um
26:07
Speaker 1: the end. So to the light in like a dining
26:11
Speaker 1: room is controlled by a dimmer switch, right, And actually,
26:14
Speaker 1: because it's kind of complex, there's a bunch of different
26:16
Speaker 1: dimmer switches, but all of them control this one light
26:19
Speaker 1: that is and so, and he says, climate change is
26:23
Speaker 1: like this brady kid that comes in the room and
26:25
Speaker 1: just starts messing with all the dimmer switches. It's gonna
26:28
Speaker 1: affect the lights, but in all sorts of different ways
26:31
Speaker 1: that are really tough to predict. And he's basically saying,
26:34
Speaker 1: like we we were. We were caught with our our
26:37
Speaker 1: guard down in nWo, and we did a lot to
26:40
Speaker 1: to make up for that. And now it's so great
26:43
Speaker 1: that we can tell farmers in Peru go plant in
26:45
Speaker 1: dry areas and you're gonna have a great crop this
26:47
Speaker 1: year shrimp, right, which is basically magic. This is what
26:52
Speaker 1: their shaman used to do a couple of thousand years ago.
26:55
Speaker 1: We're now doing right, um, which is pretty cool if
26:58
Speaker 1: you ask me. But um, now we're caught with our
27:02
Speaker 1: guard down again apparently, and we're gonna have to figure
27:05
Speaker 1: it out. And by we, I mean they and they
27:08
Speaker 1: better hurry up. Yeah, and the prevailing thought that just
27:11
Speaker 1: things beyond unpredictable or just going to be more severe. Yeah,
27:16
Speaker 1: but it's actually that doesn't make any sense because it's
27:20
Speaker 1: less severe this year, even though the service temperature is warmer.
27:25
Speaker 1: He says to me, they don't know. I'll take away
27:28
Speaker 1: from that story is that's my kind of dining room
27:32
Speaker 1: because I love dimmer switches. I love dimmer switches to man.
27:35
Speaker 1: If something will stand still long enough, I'll put a
27:37
Speaker 1: dimmer switch on it. Yeah. I've got them all over
27:39
Speaker 1: my house because why not have a dimmer switch. I
27:44
Speaker 1: don't know, why just have a dumb switch. It's like
27:47
Speaker 1: I can only be this bright on or off? Take
27:50
Speaker 1: your pick, slim. Yeah, I mean this is two thousand
27:52
Speaker 1: and sixteen, for God's sake. Yeah. So, um, we have
27:54
Speaker 1: an Amazon Echo and I don't know what that is.
27:57
Speaker 1: It's like the thing you talked to. It's the robot
27:59
Speaker 1: that eavesdrops on on you while you're in your house.
28:02
Speaker 1: Sounds neat um and it can't control lighting yet, but
28:05
Speaker 1: it's like right there, and I can't wait. I can
28:08
Speaker 1: be like turn the living room lights to what's the
28:12
Speaker 1: purpose of this thing? It at its core, it's a
28:16
Speaker 1: wireless Bluetooth speaker that responds to voice commands. Yes, that,
28:23
Speaker 1: so you have a a house robot, as John Hodgment says, yes,
28:28
Speaker 1: that is going to become sentient and kill you and
28:32
Speaker 1: your wife in your sleep probably, but not for a
28:35
Speaker 1: few decades um. And in the meantime, she's just eaves
28:39
Speaker 1: dropping on us and feeding everything we say to the
28:41
Speaker 1: n s A wow. You know, I did see a
28:44
Speaker 1: thing the other day where I can't remember which brand
28:47
Speaker 1: of TV, but one of them came out and said, hey,
28:49
Speaker 1: you know that new smart TV. UM, it's actually always
28:53
Speaker 1: listening to you, So watch what you say. Yeah, no,
28:56
Speaker 1: everything that that has the capability well, your phone, like
29:00
Speaker 1: if you look at apps and you're looking at the
29:02
Speaker 1: permission that you give apps on your phone, go check
29:05
Speaker 1: it out. It'll say, yeah, we have access to your microphone,
29:09
Speaker 1: we have access to your video UM, and you're granting
29:13
Speaker 1: them access, which means they can go in any time
29:16
Speaker 1: or all the time and you've drop on what you're saying,
29:19
Speaker 1: or watch you through your camera while you don't think
29:22
Speaker 1: that it's it's on, Like over my laptop camera at least. Yes,
29:27
Speaker 1: that's smart. But your phone is is very Have you
29:29
Speaker 1: seen Citizen for not yet. Oh, it's been sitting there
29:34
Speaker 1: on my TV. You need to see that. It's very enlightening.
29:38
Speaker 1: For sure. They talk about that because apparently when Snowdon
29:41
Speaker 1: came in the room, he like took everybody's phone, took
29:43
Speaker 1: the batteries out and then put them in like the
29:46
Speaker 1: mini fridge in the in the room. It was like,
29:48
Speaker 1: now we can talk. Yeah, And he didn't realize he
29:51
Speaker 1: was talking to human cyborgs that we're recording everything with
29:55
Speaker 1: eye cameras. No. Well, actually they had a camera in
29:58
Speaker 1: the room, which is the ironic thing, and he was talking.
30:01
Speaker 1: He knew he was being filmed. He just, I guess,
30:04
Speaker 1: wanted to control the flow of information. Well, if anyone
30:07
Speaker 1: out there wants to hack into my laptop, I will
30:10
Speaker 1: untape it for you and you will be subscribing to
30:13
Speaker 1: the most boring TV show in the world. I thought
30:14
Speaker 1: you're gonna say, you'll take him on a wild ride. No,
30:18
Speaker 1: Chuck sweeps the floor, Chuck cleans out cat poop and
30:21
Speaker 1: forgets to put in a cat litter. What I think
30:24
Speaker 1: it was on Internet round If we also talked about
30:26
Speaker 1: um there was like a Russian website with nothing but
30:30
Speaker 1: links to like baby cameras and security cameras around the
30:33
Speaker 1: world's people who have poorly protected cameras. Yeah, because I
30:38
Speaker 1: think the thing with the baby cams is they give
30:41
Speaker 1: you a password out of the box, but you're supposed
30:43
Speaker 1: to change them and if you don't, then it's easily hackable.
30:47
Speaker 1: And they're hackable anyway, dude. I read stories where like
30:51
Speaker 1: a lady went into her kid's bedroom with a camera
30:53
Speaker 1: and heard someone talking back to the kids in Russian. Yeah,
30:57
Speaker 1: it's like yelling at the kids. Every parents worst nightmare.
31:01
Speaker 1: And that's one reason I don't have a video baby monitor,
31:05
Speaker 1: and that usually Russians yell at babies through baby monitors
31:10
Speaker 1: worse than usual during El Nino seasons. Try to bring
31:13
Speaker 1: in a full circle. If you want to know more
31:15
Speaker 1: about El Nino, type that word into the search bar
31:18
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And since I said
31:20
Speaker 1: christ Child, it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call it. Well,
31:27
Speaker 1: you know, first, we got a couple of quick corrections.
31:29
Speaker 1: Uh oh, yeah, milk does a body good. It does
31:35
Speaker 1: skim Milk does not have hyprod dusk corn sort. Yeah,
31:38
Speaker 1: I just got that one wrong. It was off the
31:41
Speaker 1: cuff comment. But I have thought that a long time
31:44
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to think of where I heard it,
31:47
Speaker 1: and I don't remember. I do not remember. It was
31:49
Speaker 1: either like food ink or fed up or some documentary
31:53
Speaker 1: about food or I just confabulated it. Sorry for that one.
31:57
Speaker 1: It happens. Uh, there is some attitud it though, I
32:00
Speaker 1: stand by that. I can't remember what it is. But uh,
32:03
Speaker 1: it's not hfcp uh and A J. Hackett Boy, are
32:09
Speaker 1: we sorry? New Zealand? Yeah. Uh. The inventor, one of
32:13
Speaker 1: the forebearers of the bungee jump, was definitely not Australian. No,
32:18
Speaker 1: he was a Kiwi. And I've been both places, so
32:20
Speaker 1: I know the difference. Well, and you're the one who
32:22
Speaker 1: said it, so you you, sir, New Zealand. And to
32:26
Speaker 1: make it up, New Zealand, We're gonna come to a
32:28
Speaker 1: show there one day and it's gonna be free. Actually
32:31
Speaker 1: that's not true because we have to actually pay for
32:33
Speaker 1: the trip. But I'd love to do a show there.
32:37
Speaker 1: Let's do it. If we go to Australia, we gotta
32:39
Speaker 1: go to New Zealand. Man, they kill us if we didn't. Plus,
32:42
Speaker 1: I just want to Yeah, New Zealand beautiful. That's what
32:45
Speaker 1: I've heard, all right, So onto listener mail. Uh, this
32:49
Speaker 1: is just kind of a neat thing. That's what I'm
32:50
Speaker 1: calling it. A neat thing. Hey, guys, one year ago today,
32:53
Speaker 1: I proposed to my now wife, So I guess you
32:56
Speaker 1: said yes using a custom New York Times cusword puzzle.
33:01
Speaker 1: It sounds like something you'd do um and was entitled
33:05
Speaker 1: It was entitled stuff you should know. I worked on
33:08
Speaker 1: the puzzle with a New York Times puzzle creator uh,
33:11
Speaker 1: and even got the official layout from the New York
33:14
Speaker 1: Times magazine staff. The hotel staff where we were staying
33:17
Speaker 1: that night swapped out the puzzle in our New York
33:19
Speaker 1: Times crossword that was to be delivered the following morning.
33:23
Speaker 1: Twelve to fifteen of the clues were tied to our relationship,
33:26
Speaker 1: including the title of the puzzle. UH. From the finished puzzle,
33:30
Speaker 1: the phrase I thought it said you will marry me?
33:33
Speaker 1: That would be TV Will you Marry Me? Was spelled
33:38
Speaker 1: out in the bubbles, so creative. My wife, Hannah and
33:43
Speaker 1: I bonded early on through your podcast, and it has
33:46
Speaker 1: remained a wonderful constant in our relationship. So thanks so
33:49
Speaker 1: much for being great and then away being part of
33:51
Speaker 1: one of the best days of my life, the day
33:53
Speaker 1: I've proposed to my wife. That is three exclamation points. Um.
33:58
Speaker 1: I've attached some of the photos from that day. I
34:00
Speaker 1: looked at it and the guys telling the truth. Yeah,
34:03
Speaker 1: his story checks out. You guys are great. Adam in Chicago. PS.
34:06
Speaker 1: We saw you perform live at the Atheneum Theater here
34:10
Speaker 1: and really enjoyed it. Keep up the good work, guys
34:13
Speaker 1: for exclamation points. So he thinks we're doing a better
34:18
Speaker 1: work than he enjoyed his own engagement. Yeah, and he
34:22
Speaker 1: also said, you guys are great to exclamation points, so
34:25
Speaker 1: I see where your priorities lay. Adam in Chicago, we
34:30
Speaker 1: got six six exclamation points come by Adam and Hannah.
34:34
Speaker 1: Way to go. I hope you guys stay married forever
34:37
Speaker 1: and listen to us as part of your long lasting
34:41
Speaker 1: flavor agreement legal agreement. Well, put Chuck, we just really
34:47
Speaker 1: deflated that dude's name. Uh. If you want to get
34:50
Speaker 1: in touch with us, you can tweet to us at
34:52
Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast. You can join us on
34:54
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should know. You can
34:56
Speaker 1: send us an email, stuff podcast at how stuff Works
34:59
Speaker 1: dot com, and as always, joined us at our home
35:01
Speaker 1: on the Web, the super cool, super awesome James Brown
35:06
Speaker 1: of websites Stuff You dot com. For more on this
35:15
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit House stuff works dot com.