Seasonal models are predicting an El Niño climate pattern that could be the strongest on record, bringing with it more extreme weather. Jeff Berardelli, chief meteorologist and climate specialist at WFLA-TV in Tampa, Florida, said, “I think we’re going to see weather events that we’ve never seen in modern history before.”
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) expects an El Niño event to develop from the middle of this year, impacting global temperature and rainfall patterns. While models indicate this may be a strong event, the WMO cautioned that forecasts are less accurate in spring. El Niño is a cyclical warming of patches of the equatorial Pacific that alters global weather patterns, while its counterpart La Niña features cooler-than-average waters.
Berardelli explained that El Niño redistributes heat on Earth, with subsurface heat in the Pacific moving east and ascending to the surface. The WMO’s Global Seasonal Climate Update shows rapidly rising sea-surface temperatures, with high confidence in the onset of El Niño and further intensification in the months ahead. Wilfran Moufouma Okia, chief of climate prediction at WMO, confirmed these findings.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the California Institute for Water Resources, noted that the volume and intensity of subsurface warm water anomalies are as large as any seen in the historical record. “One of the key building blocks to make it fully materialize is, in fact, occurring,” he said. “We still don't know exactly what's going to happen. It's not guaranteed it'll be a super El Niño. But the potential is there for something genuinely remarkable.”
If the Pacific releases a lot of heat, it could supercharge the climate system, leading to stronger heat waves, worsening drought in some areas, and more intense floods due to increased moisture in the air. El Niño also subdues Atlantic hurricane seasons, as heat in the Pacific outcompetes the Atlantic. The Caribbean is expected to be extra dry this summer with fewer tropical systems.
Globally, El Niño is expected to make this summer hotter than normal in the United States, with significant heat waves and more frequent thunderstorms in the Southwest. Forest degradation in the Amazon, already affecting about 40% of the region, could be exacerbated. Swain expects record global warmth later this year or next, driven by the combination of El Niño and climate change. However, Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, noted that El Niño is a “zero-sum game” that typically oscillates back to La Niña, lowering temperatures for a year or two. The long-term warming trend will continue as long as fossil fuels are burned.
