El Niño is an abnormal periodic warming of surface ocean water off the Pacific coast of South America. (dairyreporter.com)
The oscillation is a pattern of climate variability akin to El Niño and La Niña — weather patterns caused by periodic warming and cooling of ocean temperatures in the Pacific — except it is longer - lived. (discovermagazine.com)
For example, in Peru in the 1500s, periodic warming near the equator seem to affect the size of fishermens» catch; and those warmings also seemed to coincide with torrential rainfalls in northern Peru. (educationworld.com)