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.”
Read more: The Guardian on MSN
