AskScience AMA Series: It's getting hot in here! I'm a climate scientist researching El Niño and warm ocean extremes called marine heat waves, AMA!

With a potentially strong El Niño on the horizon, it's time to start preparing for what Earth's climate system may have in store for us. As I recently wrote in The Conversation, it's flooding, droughts, heat waves and cold spells. Any and all of these climate extremes could be in your near future depending on where you live and whether or not you're a fish (welcome to the internet my underwater friends).

My name is Dillon Amaya and I'm a climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)*. I use a combination of computer model simulations and observations to study climate variability and change, with a particular focus on how things like El Niño impact the world's oceans. Feel free to ask me anything about life, love, and happiness, but also (preferably) about climate change/variability/extremes, El Niño, and/or what it's like to study the ocean from land-locked Colorado.

*Thoughts and opinions are my own.

I'll be around starting at 12 ET (16 UT), AMA!

Username: /u/DrDJAmaya