El Niño is a huge temperature and sea level change in the Pacific Ocean. A giant pool of warm water moves from west to east, causing rainfall 10-40 times above average in South America. The European environmental satellite Envisat carries a pair of instruments ideally suited to detecting and mapping the up to 50 cm high plateau created by an El Niño event. These images, taken by the ERS-2 satellite, unveil the extent and the temperature changes (colour) that happened during the El Niño and the following La Niña effect from 1997 to 2000.