1. By Gracie C.

2. El Niño is a rising in Earth’s oceans temperature over by South America. No one really knows what causes it, but scientists think it might be caused by underwater volcanoes. It got the name because El Niño normally occurs around Christmas and El Niño is Spanish for “little boy” referring to Jesus.

3. An El Niño happens about every three to seven years for about a year and usually starts around South America. It goes all the way around the world and causes major weather problems. Although problems in weather don’t always occur during El Niño, it is good to know that they could.

4. Some things that El Niño can cause are floods, land slides, and droughts. It would flood where it would normally be completely dry, drought where it would normally rain, and etc…

5. El Niño has effected animal habitats a lot, mostly sea animals. The plankton aren’t able to get food because of all the warm water, which has little nutrients, so the whole food chain gets messed up in the ocean.

6. Dry, Warm Climate Before El Niño During El Niño Wet, Flooded Climate

8. http://www.sxc.hu/pic/m/h/ho/hotblack/1091960_dry_ground.jpg http://library.thinkquest.org/4292/pg.2a.html http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/files/imagecache/news/files/news/20090203_drought.jpg http://kids.earth.nasa.gov/archive/nino/intro.html http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/elnino/whatis.html http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~weather/pages/3D_El_Nino.jpg http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/images/elnino_flood_lakeport_sm.jpg https://mdmttabor.pps.k12.or.us/public/LaConchitaLandslide_air.jpg http://www.mindfully.org/Water/2005/Plankton-Vanishing12jul05.jpg