From the Guardian
The “jaw-dropping” El Niño currently heating up the planet has burst through the highest temperature ever recorded for the phenomenon, several months before its expected peak.
The latest data shows the temperature rise at the heart of El Niño in the Pacific Ocean has now reached 3.05C. That is higher than the 3.02C set in late November 2015, the previous high set in the 150 years of modern records. This temperature is measured against the average of 1991-2020.
The preferred measure of most meteorologists uses a 30-year rolling average as a reference and so takes account of human-caused global heating. This metric, called ONI (Nino3.4), is on the brink of breaking the record, just one-hundredth of a degree below the 2015 record. Both metrics are underpinned by data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The most recent forecasts predict a peak of 4.0C in November and December, according to the average of 14 different models assessed by climate scientist Zeke Hausfather. That is a level so far above previous events that Hausfather called it “mind-blowing”, while others have described it as “Godzilla-level”. Any temperature rise above 0.5C is deemed an El Niño; above 2C is officially called a “very strong” El Niño – often referred to as a “super” El Niño.
The current El Niño is likely to be the largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into an atmosphere in which temperatures are already rising rapidly due to human-caused global heating. This double whammy means 2027 is expected to “blow apart” previous records and become the hottest year ever recorded.
The climate crisis, caused by pollution from fossil fuels, is already supercharging extreme weather and killing people. The El Niño will ratchet up the impacts even further, and has already begun to affect regions across the planet as weather patterns are altered.
“Very strong El Niño events like those in 1997/1998 and 2015/2016 were associated with hundreds of billions of dollars in damages globally – this event is leaving those past ones in the dust,” said Hausfather, whose analysis is published by Carbon Brief.
Prof Friederike Otto, at Imperial College London, said: “This event is a huge redistribution of energy in the climate system and is dangerous because it is unfolding on top of a much warmer, human-influenced climate system.
“So, in many places around the world we will see never-before-experienced heat extremes, with all their consequences on health, food security and water stress,” she said. “El Niño comes and goes, but as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels it occurs on an increasingly hotter baseline, making it much more difficult for communities to deal with the consequences.”
Hot and dry conditions in Indonesia have already spurred record wildfires and fatal levels of air pollution, while India has seen vital monsoon rains curtailed. Drought conditions in Central America and the Caribbean are causing crop losses and a slowdown of trade due to low water levels in the Panama canal. The World Food Programme said in August the impacts of El Niño were likely to push about 50 million people into acute hunger and drive prices up.
El Niño years also see more intense rains and flooding in some regions, with Peru and Chile already suffering, and access to Machu Picchu is disrupted. The Horn of Africa is also very vulnerable to increased downpours, while the southern US is expected to experience fierce rains in the winter.
The southern hemisphere summer is predicted to be hotter and drier as a result of the huge El Niño, meaning greater wildfire risk and droughts in Australia and southern Africa. Typhoons in the Pacific are expected to be more intense, but Atlantic hurricanes are suppressed by El Niño and, unusually, none has yet occurred this year.
While the usual impacts of El Niño are well known, scientists are concerned that the multiplying effect of the climate crisis could shift these patterns. This would make it harder for countries and communities to prepare. The UN World Meteorological Organization said it has launched the biggest mobilisation in its 50-year history to support national weather services to deliver “life-saving” forecasts.
The UN secretary-general António Guterres said earlier in September: “El Niño is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather. The race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people.”
In the Guardian on Tuesday meanwhile, Prof Bill McGuire said: “What is happening in the equatorial Pacific is jaw-dropping and could well mark one of the biggest global weather upheavals in a millennium.
“It will spawn a string of weather catastrophes around our world.”
He said strong El Niños can have a devastating effect on the global economy: “While the great recession of 2008 resulted in global GDP reducing by around $2tn, the 1997–98 super El Niño resulted in losses of $5.7tn.” That El Niño has already been surpassed by the current one.
Recent research shows global heating is now intensifying El Niño cycles, which then in turn intensify the impacts of the climate crisis. Data from analysis of corals, tree rings and historical documents suggest no El Niño has reached this level in the last millennium, added Hausfather.
“All effects from El Niño are magnified by global climate change,” said Prof Kevin Trenberth, at the National Center of Atmospheric Research in the US. “The northern summer of excess heat and wildfires in Europe, North America and Asia are but a sample of what is to come.”
We need to treat the climate catastrophe as a war. One we are losing badly. Force emission reductions now. We know what to do. Yet we dither and phaff, and do nothing.
