US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declare weather event has begun
Seth Borenstein
El Nino, nature’s chaotic climate driver, has formed in the warming Pacific Ocean and is expected to reach historic strength, meteorologists announced Thursday.
Experts have said El Niño, a natural warming cycle, will further warm a world already warming from fossil fuel pollution, possibly accelerating extreme weather conditions on the planet. Meteorologists predict it will rival or exceed the record El Nino that began in 1997 and helped trigger billions of dollars in damage from heat waves, floods, droughts, hurricanes and wildfires.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has officially confirmed the existence of El Nino, which refers to the warming of the Pacific Ocean near the equator and affects weather patterns around the world. There is a 63 percent chance that El Nino will become so intense that it “will be among the largest El Nino events in the historical record dating back to 1950,” NOAA’s announcement said.
Clark University climate scientist Abby Frazier said El Nino’s warm, deep waters affect weather by “bringing a lot of extra heat to the surface, fueling a lot of extreme events in many parts of the world.”
He said the situation could deteriorate very quickly, especially in the Pacific.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called El Niño an “urgent climate warning.”
“El Nino conditions will fuel the fire of a warming world” Guterres said in his video message:.
The effects of weather vary by region. El Niño often reduces, but does not eliminate, activity in the Atlantic hurricane season, but increases it in the Pacific. Frazier said the U.S. East and Gulf coasts could get a break, but Hawaii and other islands are more at risk.
Climate scientists said the drought-hit Middle East could benefit. Other places face more danger. Parts of western South America, where the first El Niño was noticed decades ago, often experience extremely hot summers as well as heavy rain and flooding.
While India faces more intense heatwaves, drought, bushfires and heat threaten Australia.
Columbia University climate scientist and El Niño expert Muhammad Azhar Ehsan said Northeast Africa will likely be affected by weather conditions ranging from intense drought to dangerously heavy rains.
In the U.S., El Niños can cause more severe storms with heavier rainfall in the South, but they also tend to benefit the U.S. agricultural industry overall, said Jon Gottschalck, operational branch chief for NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
The biggest impact in the U.S. usually occurs during the winter months, when the south may get wetter and the Pacific Northwest may get warmer and drier. But rising temperatures due to weather in general could reduce American economic growth, Stanford climate economist Marshall Burke said.
Some climate scientists predict that 2027 will be the warmest year on record due to the delayed effects of El Niño, which is expected to peak in the fall or winter.
“We have pretty clear evidence that the U.S. economy grows more slowly when temperatures are above normal,” Burke said.
The extreme weather conditions caused by El Niño also depend on when it occurs.
Vecchi said the early indicators — including warm water pushing toward the surface of the Pacific — were so strong and noticeable that forecasters were all predicting the same ultra-strong El Nino, adding that El Nino predictions are everywhere this time of year.
Frazier and others said scientists predict El Nino will become stronger as the world warms due to the burning of coal, oil and gas. But he said it was too early to tell whether El Nino was a part of it.
Even before it officially formed, this El Niño had received various nicknames, from “super” to “Godzilla.”
“Instead of being afraid, we can ask people to be prepared,” Columbia’s Ehsan said.
