El+Niño

=El Niño=

El Niño is a naturally ocurring storm that effects many parts of the world. To be specific, the term "El Niño" refers to a system of sea surface and tempurature changes in the sea, as well as warming the pacific ocean along South America. The southern oscillation, a current in Pacific Ocean, flows in its opposite directions is directly resposnible for an El Niño year. It reocurrs irregularly between about two to seven years and shown **to the right** are the areas of the world that are effected during an El Niño year. (Dept. of Fish and Game)

South America experienced huge amounts of rainfall along the western coast of South America from El Niño between 500 and 600 AD a new desert was created. This is the Atacama desert, the driest desert in the world. The catastrophic rainfall also created floods that destroyed most of the Moche capitol. The survivors of these downpours rebuilt what they could, but eventually sand dunes from the newly developing desert that entered Cerro Blanco and covered most of the remaining dwellings. The Moche left the site and moved farther inland, but their great structures the Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna still remained. (Mosely 1992)