\nWe summarize the week’s scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.<\/p>\n
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Here are three things to know as this climate pattern takes hold.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s an El Ni\u00f1o?<\/h2>\n The El Ni\u00f1o phase of ENSO (in contrast to a neutral or La Ni\u00f1a phase) is characterized by months of warmer than normal sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific. Peruvian fishermen in the 1600s noticed this warming often occurring around Christmas time, and dubbed the phenomenon \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o,\u201d which means \u201clittle boy\u201d or \u201cthe Christ child\u201d in Spanish.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouthern Oscillation\u201d refers to a seesaw between zones of high atmospheric pressure and low atmospheric pressure over the eastern Pacific Ocean and western Pacific Ocean. That seesawing triggers changes in atmospheric circulation, air temperature and precipitation on a global scale.<\/p>\n
Scientists track these air pressure changes at two main weather stations \u2014 in Darwin, Australia (in the west) and French Polynesia\u2019s Tahiti (in the east). During the neutral and La Ni\u00f1a phases, the high-pressure zone is in the east, so that prevailing winds blow westward across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The winds push the warm surface waters of the Pacific westward, away from the coast of the Americas, allowing cold, nutrient-rich water to well up from the deep ocean. That keeps the eastern equatorial Pacific waters cold.<\/p>\n
But every few years, there\u2019s a flip, with high pressure over the western Pacific, and lower pressure over the eastern Pacific. That weakens or even reverses the direction of the prevailing winds, allowing the warm surface waters to stay in place \u2014 and effectively suppressing the upwelling cold water. Sea surface temperatures warm rapidly in the eastern Pacific, signaling the onset of an El Ni\u00f1o phase.<\/p>\n
No two El Ni\u00f1o events are exactly alike, says Tom Di Liberto, a climate scientist with the nonprofit climate news organization Climate Central who is based in Washington, D.C. But what they all have in common is that they transfer a huge amount of heat from the tropical Pacific to the atmosphere. And that burst of heat can dramatically raise global temperatures during the event.<\/p>\n
What would make this year\u2019s event \u201csuper\u201d?<\/h2>\n An El Ni\u00f1o phase officially starts when sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean are persistently at least 0.5 degrees Celsius above average for several months. The warmer the waters are, the stronger the impacts are likely to be. Waters warmer than 2 degrees C above average signal the onset of a very strong, or \u201csuper\u201d El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n
Since April, researchers have been observing persistently above-average temperatures over the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, and dozens of forecasts around the world predicted that El Ni\u00f1o was imminent. By June, as the ocean continued to warm, those forecasts began to predict that it would be a strong event.<\/p>\n\nSponsor Message<\/p>\n
Climate change has made detecting temperature anomalies that signal an El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s onset and strength more difficult, due to uneven warming from region to region. So in May, NOAA\u2019s Climate Prediction Center adopted a new tool for its El Ni\u00f1o forecast called the Relative Ocean Ni\u00f1o Index that adjusts for climate change\u2013related warming.<\/p>\n
Using this new metric, NOAA predicts that this winter, sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific are 63 percent likely to be more than 2 degrees Celsius higher than average this winter, signaling the onset of a super El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n
Climate simulations are forecasting \u201cshockingly high\u201d global temperatures for November and December, Di Liberto says. Such heat can have deadly consequences, not only due to heat-related illnesses,<\/a> but also upticks in pest-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and malaria.<\/p>\nIn addition to raising global temperatures, El Ni\u00f1os alter the position of the Pacific jet stream, meaning some areas become drier, while others become wetter. For the United States, one of the most significant impacts is on tropical cyclones: While El Ni\u00f1o years typically can mean more numerous and intense cyclones in the Pacific, changing wind regimes can hamper hurricane formation in the Atlantic.<\/p>\n
That said, the life cycle of an El Ni\u00f1o is relatively short: The events typically form in the summer, strengthen into the winter, then die out in the spring.<\/p>\n
How will this year stack up to past powerful El Ni\u00f1os?<\/h2>\n The most recent strong El Ni\u00f1os happened in 2015\u20132016, 1997\u20131998 and 1982\u20131983.<\/p>\n
The 1997\u201398 event was the strongest on record. It raised the average global temperature for that period by 1.5 degrees Celsius, and led to devastating extreme weather events. Those included torrential rains and floods in Peru and East Africa that in turn triggered an outbreak of Rift Valley fever in the region; droughts that kicked off deadly wildfires in Southeast Asia; powerful storms that resulted in catastrophic flooding and landslides in California. Soaring ocean temperatures caused bleaching in about 16 percent of the world\u2019s coral reefs.<\/p>\n
Such strong El Ni\u00f1os leave a long mark on the global economy, researchers reported in 2023 in Science<\/em>. Global economic losses attributed to the 1997\u201398 event are estimated to be about $5.7 trillion. The 1982\u201383 event cost the world an estimated $4.1 billion.<\/p>\nWhether this year\u2019s event will reach super status is not yet certain. But because the event is occurring on top of already rapidly warming global temperatures due to human-caused climate change, its impacts will likely be dramatic even if the event turns out only to be moderately strong, Di Liberto says. \u201cIt would not take a very strong El Ni\u00f1o to see records broken this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
El Ni\u00f1o is here. And buckle up for a bumpy ride, scientists say: By the end of 2026, this might become the strongest El Ni\u00f1o on record. On June 11, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that Earth has officially entered the \u201cwarm\u201d El Ni\u00f1o phase of a roughly two- to seven-year ocean-climate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adviews.info\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}