Are we in for a Super El Nino this year? Early estimates say maybe, and that has climate scientists worried

After a year and a half of La Nina conditions, it looks like we may end up with El Nino later this year. And early models suggest it could be a strong one, which could push global temperatures to record highs.

La Niña and El Niño are part of a larger, natural cyclical cycle called the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which occurs in a specific part of the Pacific Ocean.

La Nina brings cooler temperatures to that area of ​​the ocean – called Nino 3.4 – while El Nino brings warmer temperatures.

But it also affects climate and weather patterns around the world – it can cause floods in some areas and drought in others – as well as impacting global temperatures.

Currently, we are in a La Nina Advisory/El Nino WatchThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Climate Prediction Center has called for a period of neutral conditions until the summer before transitioning to El Niño.

Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit climate analysis organization. recently looked at 11 models, with a total of 433 predictions, and found that there’s a chance we could see a strong to perhaps “super” El Niño this year.

“Interestingly, they all – or almost all, I should say – show a strong likelihood of a strong El Niño event developing later this year, which was a huge change from what we saw a month ago,” he said.

“It looks like we’re in for a strong (El Niño) with the possibility of an extremely strong El Niño event. Something that could even challenge what we saw in 2015-2016.”

The strongest El Niño we had in recent times was in 1997–98 and 2015–16. The former was considered a Super El Niño event, in which temperatures reached about 2.7 °C above average in Niño 3.4. The 2015–16 event was considered stronger, with ocean temperatures reaching about 2 C above average.

At the moment, the average of Hausfather’s 11 analyzed forecasts is calling for 2.4 C temperature anomaly.

However, Hausfather says the projections are still preliminary and within what scientists call the “spring unpredictability barrier,” where forecasts are less reliable.

what to expect

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, has looked at many of the models himself, and he says it looks like we’re set for a strong El Niño.

“Most (models), almost all, suggest at least moderate intensity El Niño by the end of this summer, and most actually go into strong or extreme territory,” he said. But he had a caveat along with the early estimates: “This is probably the most likely outcome, but with wide error bars.”

However, Swain said that, at the moment, conditions are quite favorable for a strong El Niño.

Because our oceans absorb about 90 percent of the excess heat from greenhouse gases, when El Niño develops, it releases some of that stored heat into the atmosphere, causing global temperatures to rise more than natural and even more than human-caused warming from greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere.

But it also affects regional weather patterns.

Currently, most models suggest El Niño will develop around June, although some models – including a Canadian one – differ and suggest some weakening. The peak of El Nino is expected to occur in November.

According to Hausfather, this year is currently on track to be the second-warmest year on record, but it could end up somewhere between the warmest and fourth-warmest. “But due to El Nino, global temperatures may increase after some time,” he said.

Usually, there is a gap of about three months, he said. So if El Nino peaks in November or December, we will see temperature impacts in 2027.

However, the last strong El Niño will occur in 2023–2024 threw a curveball at climate scientists. Instead of seeing a summer that began three months after El Nino peaked, it began in the second half of 2023, Many monthly temperature records are being broken.

Scientists are still trying to understand why this happened – and keeping an eye on whether it could happen again.

“If we start to see a huge peak (in temperatures) this summer, that would be very unusual and we would have to reevaluate a little bit how unusual what happened three years ago was,” Hausfather said. “I don’t think it (will happen), but we’ll see.”

Domino effect

If there is a strong El Nino, 2027 will surpass 2024 as the hottest year on record, which was 1.5 C above pre-industrial averageAccording to NASA.

Swain says 2027 could be 1.6 C warmer. “And so we will see impacts at a 1.6 Celsius level of warming globally in terms of extreme events, extreme heat, extreme rainfall, extreme drought, and wildfires and all of these,” he said.

“And it will be El Nino-flavored. So some areas will see certain types of extremes, and other areas will see different types of extremes.”

The 2015-2016 El Nino brought with it Record storm year in central North Pacific, severe drought in EthiopiaAnd created conditions for the spread of disease.

As global temperatures continue to rise – the 10 hottest years have occurred in the last 10 years – there is a real concern that we may soon exceed the 1.5°C limit of warming. Mentioned by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

According to the World Meteorological Organization, the past 11 years were the hottest on record, 1.5 C has been exceeded in the last three years.

This does not mean that we have yet exceeded the IPCC limits. A 1.5 C global warming would take many years for this to happen.

But Swain said a strong El Niño event is like a temporary window into the future. And this is not good.

“In a warming climate, a strong El Niño event gives us a preview of the future that we have not experienced in all of human history,” Swain said.