Researchers see the conditions for 2023 as an "El Niño" year. They even fear that 2024 could be a record year for weather recording.
Waashington D.C. – According to US researchers, the natural weather event El Niño has begun in the Pacific Ocean. This would make the Earth, which is increasingly struggling with the consequences of climate change, even warmer. According to the research team, a "Super El Niño" could even occur, so that 2024 could be the hottest year in world history.
2023 is an "El Niño" year: weather phenomenon could have a devastating impact on the planet
"It's increasing now, there's been signs in our predictions for several months now, but it really looks like it's going to peak at the end of this year in terms of intensity," Adam Scaife, head of long-term forecasts at the UK Met Office, told the BBC. The weather event is expected to last until next spring, after which the effects of the El Niño are likely to subside.
El Niño Pacific © Science Photo Library/Imago
In addition, the researchers fear that the weather phenomenon could play its part in the world surpassing the dubious milestone of global warming of over 1.5°C. The impact on global weather could also be drastic, potentially leading to droughts in Africa and Australia, more rain and precipitation in the southern United States, and a weakening of the monsoon in India.
Weather phenomenon El Niño: "New record for global temperature next year plausible"
"A new record for next year's global temperature is definitely plausible," Scaife continued. "It depends on how big the El Niño is – a big El Niño at the end of this year offers a high probability that we will measure a new record for global temperature in 2024."
The El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO as it is properly called, has three distinct phases: hot, cold or neutral, and is the strongest fluctuation of the climate system on Earth. The hot phase, called El Niño, occurs every two to seven years and causes warm water off the coast of South America to reach the surface, spread across the ocean and push significant amounts of heat into the atmosphere.
Hot phase of the weather event is imminent: "El Niño conditions prevail"
Record-warm years, including 2016, the world's hottest on record, usually occur in the year following a strong El Niño event. Weather authorities around the world use different criteria to decide when this hot phase is imminent.
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What happens during an El Niño?
El Niño is a climate phenomenon that occurs every two to seven years in the Pacific. A change in air and ocean currents whirls up the weather. Concomitants of the weather event are often droughts and forest fires, heavy precipitation and floods.
For scientists in the U.S., their definition means that the ocean must be 0.5°C hotter than normal for a month, that the atmosphere reacts to that heat, and that there must be evidence that the event is ongoing. These conditions were met in the month of May. In a statement, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that "El Niño conditions prevail."
"This is a very weak signal. But we believe that we are seeing these conditions now and that they will continue to worsen," Michelle L'Heureux, a scientist at NOAA, told the BBC. "Our weekly value is actually 0.8°C last week, which is even stronger."
Possible "Super El Niño" 2023: Probability of the weather phenomenon is 25 percent
The researchers estimate that the probability of this weather event exceeding the average strength by the end of 2023 is 84%. In addition, the team believes that the probability of this event exceeding 2°C at its peak is one in four, which is in the range of a "super El Niño". The effects of the outbreak of El Niño, which has its counterpart in La Niña, are likely to occur a few months later, but will be felt all over the world.
Experience has shown that this imminent weather event will incur high human and economic costs. The strong El Niño in 1997-98, for example, cost over $5 trillion and claimed around 23,000 lives from storms and floods. In 2020, the El Niño also threatened dramatic consequences.