Scientists fear brimming El Niño will be big, bad and costly with heat, floods, droughts, fires
US climate scientists have followed Australian authorities in announcing warming temperatures in the Pacific Ocean indicate an El Niño weather event is brewing.
The key alarm bells have been rung in the tropical waters, after the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officially confirmed overnight the existence of the weather phenomenon near the equator.
US climate scientists have followed Australian authorities in announcing warming temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, which will also impact on-land. AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
NOAA’s announcement said there’s a 63 per cent chance that the El Nino will get so intense later this year - across the US autumn and early winter - that it “would rank among the largest El Nino events in the historical record, going back to 1950.”
An El Niño affects weather patterns across the globe and scientists believe this latest natural warming cycle will further heat the planet and will likely turbocharge extreme weather around the world.
The warm, deep waters of an El Niño affect weather patterns by bringing “a lot of extra heat to the surface, fuelling a lot of extreme events for a lot of places around the world,” said Clark University climate scientist Abby Frazier.
In Australia, it’s typified by warmer, drier weather in Australia’s east - this increases bushfire dangers and is bad news for regions already battling drought conditions.
The El Niño weather event typically brings warmer and drier conditions and will hit in Australia's summer. AAP
Threshold reached
Weather tracking firm Weatherzone first reported the temperature threshold had been reached in the Pacific Ocean earlier on Thursday.
They said the latest readings from the sea surface temperature index used by Australian weather authorities, including the Bureau of Meteorology and the National Climate Centre, showed the tropical Pacific had warmed by +0.81 degrees.
Australia considers a reading of +0.8 degrees or more - what the BoM considers “about one standard deviation above average” - the threshold for an El Niño event.
That’s already higher than the US threshold for the same, which sits at +0.5 degrees.
But it doesn’t mean an El Niño is here or even inevitable. Several months have to pass of sustained above-average temperatures for weather authorities to declare an El Niño event.
Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean signal a potential El Nino event. NOAA
There is no international standard for measuring such things, so the timeline varies.
But Weatherzone has warned it’s likely to happen, given other observations in the area.
“Computer models suggest that this El Niño signal is likely to strengthen further in the coming months and could persist through winter and spring in the Southern Hemisphere,” Weatherzone’s Ben Domensino wrote.
“In addition to the recent ocean warmth, there are also signs that the atmosphere has started responding to the warming in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
“These early signs of ocean-atmosphere coupling are a clear sign that El Niño is getting underway.”
He also said the waters below the sea surface were “abnormally warm” at the moment, which would reinforce hotter temperatures on the surface.
The last such event took place from mid-2023 to early 2024.
El Nino’s impacts spawn winners and losers
The weather pattern’s effects vary by region.
El Niño often dampens — but doesn’t eliminate — Atlantic hurricane season activity, but increases it in the Pacific. So while the US East and Gulf coasts may get a break, Hawaii and other islands are more in danger, Frazier said.
El Niño's weather patterns affect regions differently. AP Photo/Adam Gray
The drought-stricken Middle East could benefit, climate scientists said.
Other places are looking at more danger, such as India, which faces more intense heat waves.
Parts of western South America — where the first El Niños were noticed decades ago — often get heavy rain and floods, along with an extra warm summer.
Northeastern Africa is likely going to get weather whiplash from intense drought to dangerously heavy rains, said Columbia University climate scientist and El Niño expert Muhammad Azhar Ehsan.
Strong early signs
The weather extremes caused by an El Niño also depend on when it develops.
Usually El Niños form in the Northern Hemisphere summer, before peaking in the late autumn or early winter, and peter out by the next spring, scientists said.
However, in Australia, this means forming in our winter and peaking in the late spring or early summer before petering out by next autumn, meaning there’s the potential it will make an already hot time of year even hotter.
Ehsan’s team forecasts that this El Niño will peak a month or two earlier based on strong early signs from recent weeks. Princeton University climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi said large El Niños like these also tend to last longer.
The early indications — including warmer water pushing toward the surface of the Pacific — have been so strong and noticeable that forecasters have all been predicting the same ultra-strong El Niño, Vecchi said, adding that El Niño forecasts often are all over the place at this time of year.
Scientists predict stronger El Niños as the world warms from the burning of coal, oil and gas, Frazier and others said. But she said it is too early to say if this El Niño is part of that.
- Reported with Associated Press.
Share a tip-off, video or photo with us
Most viewed in Australia
‘Unimaginable loss’: Two children killed in horror crash on the way home from school
Talia and Ebony were physically abused by their mother. Then she was made into a TV star
Blanche d’Alpuget, writer and widow of Bob Hawke, dies aged 82
Justine lost her brother suddenly. Then an unexpected email arrived
