Our Affair with El Nino - How we Transformed an Enchanting Peruvian Current into a Global Climate Hazard

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix PROLOGUE: Assessing Our Affair as It Approaches a Critical Juncture 1(10) PART 1: WHO IS EL NIÑO? 1 A Mercurial Character 11(17) 2 A Fallen Angel? 28(6) 3 A Construct of Ours 34(6) 4 A Matchmaker 40(25) PART 2: OUR DILEMMA 5 Two Incompatible Cultures 65(16) 6 "Small" Science versus "Big" Science 81(12) PART 3: COMMON GROUND 7 The Perspective of a Painter 93(25) 8 The Perspective of a Poet 118(11) 9 The Perspective of a Musician 129(10) 10 A Marriage of the "Hard" and "Soft" Sciences 139(12) 11 The Cloud 151(10) PART 4: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE 12 Predicting the Weather 161(16) 13 Investigating the Atmospheric Circulation 177(12) 14 Exploring the Oceans 189(24) 15 Reconciling Divergent Perspectives on El Niño 213(14) 16 Taking a Long-Term Geological View 227(10) PART 5: COPING WITH HAZARDS 17 Famines in India 237(3) 18 Fisheries of Peru 240(4) 19 Droughts in Zimbabwe 244(7) EPILOGUE: Becoming Custodians of Planet Earth 251(8) NOTES AND REFERENCES 259(14) INDEX 273