| Year | Event | Source(s) |
| 1877-78 | A rather large/influential El Nino. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1877%E2%80%931878_El_Ni%C3%B1o_event |
| 1891 | The name first appears in scientific literature in a 1891 report in the Lima Geographical Society Bulletin by its president, Señor Dr Luis Carranza. (Miller, 2007) | Miller, J. 2007. The Fall of an Angel: Gendering and Demonizing El Niño |
| 1894 | Perruvian geographer Victor Eguiguren, suggested a link between the heavy rains that resulted in flood damage to the northern coastal city of Piura in 1891 and the warm coastal current, El Niño. (Miller, 2007) | Miller, J. 2007. The Fall of an Angel: Gendering and Demonizing El Niño |
| 1895 | at the Sixth International Geographical Congress in Lima, Peru, Se�or Federico Alfronso Pezet cited this report and called attention to a counter-current flowing north to south between the ports of Paita and Pacasmayo (Miller, 2007) | Miller, J. 2007. The Fall of an Angel: Gendering and Demonizing El Niño |
| 1923 | Robert Cushman Murphy’s writings on the1923–1924 El Niño differentiated between the ‘annual’ and ‘longer’cycle of El Niño.21 It was his paper in the American journal the Geographical Review that precipitated an increased focus in the rarer events, due to their interest to the international guano industry. (Adamson, 2018: 205) | |
| 1941-2 | Other El Niño’s were notable for associated mortality. The El Niño of 1941–1942 contributed to a drought in Bengal and was largely responsible for the last major famine in the Indian subcontinent.(Adamson 2018: 181) | |
| 1960s | The Southern Oscillation — the surface pressure oscillation across the Pacific Ocean — became linked with El Niño by Jacob Bjerknes in the early 1960s when he recognized the interplay of the ocean and the atmosphere in generating these meteorological events. (Miller, 2007) | Miller, J. 2007. The Fall of an Angel: Gendering and Demonizing El Niño |
| 1969 | “Despite rejections of his ideas by the scientific community during his lifetime, [Gilbert] Walker’s approach was vindicated by Jacob Bjerknes when he linked the phenomenon with El Niño in 1969.” Adamson, 2018: 201 | |
| 1972-3 | El Niño shifted from being a regional to a global event in 1972-73. Associated droughts in the Soviet Union, West Africa, Ethiopia, India, southern Africa, Australia, Central America, Brazil, and Indonesia caused a worldwide decline in food production, providing an imperative for scientific research into this climate phenomenon. Fishing catches also declined. El Niño became a problem to be overcome. Fuelling this push for technological capability on the part of Western nations was also the rivalry between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union (Miller, 2007) | Miller, J. 2007. The Fall of an Angel: Gendering and Demonizing El Niño See also Dagomar Degroot, 2026, Sept 2nd |
| 1982 | The term ENSO was first used in 1982 by Rasmusson and Carpenter to characterize the system described by Bjerknes.10The media focused on the destructive impact of the 1982-83 El Niño and from then the term El Niño came into common usage.15 For example, in February 1984, National Geographic published a photo essay of the 1982-83 event and its worldwide consequences.16 Miller, 2007 The 1982–1983 El Niño was th first to attract global news coverage and introduced the term ‘El Niño’ into the public consciousness. Designated, because of its strength, the ‘El Niño of the century’, it was also the first to be measured and tracked by a small but significant network of observational buoys and research vessels.(Adamson, 2018: 181) | Miller, J. 2007. The Fall of an Angel: Gendering and Demonizing El Niño |
| 1982 | Although these definitions appear clear, they were actually defined somewhat arbitrarily, the results of a pencil sketch by the meteorologist Gene Rasmusson durin a radio interview in 1982–1983.13 (Adamson, 2018: 204) | |
| 1984 | For example, in February 1984, National Geographic [Vo 165, 2] published a photo essay of the 1982-83 event and its worldwide consequences.16 It was clear from this essay that El Niño was now viewed in the pejorative. (Miller, 2007) | Miller, J. 2007. The Fall of an Angel: Gendering and Demonizing El Niño |
| The South African clima-tologist S. George Philander suggested the name ‘La Niña’ in 1985.24 (Adamson, 2018: 205) | ||
| 1997 | On Saturday Night Live in October 1997 the comedian Chris Farley rep-resented El Niño as a Mexican wrestler, which ‘all other tropical storms must bow before’.34 (Adamson, 2018: 204) | |
| 2015 | August – during interview NASA climatologist refers to coming El Nino as a “Godzilla” | |