Paris,Ā France | AFP | Muser NewsDesk
The warming El NiƱo weather phenomenon could form later this year, potentially pushing global temperatures to record heights.
There is a 50- to 60-percent chance of El NiƱo developing during the July-September period and beyond, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The World Meteorological Organization will issue an update on El NiƱo on Tuesday.
Here’s what you need to know about El NiƱo and its cooler sister, La NiƱa:
Why the name?
El NiƱo and its cooler sister La NiƱa are two phases of a natural climate pattern across the tropical Pacific known as the El NiƱo-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
Peruvian and Ecuadoran fishermen coined the term El NiƱo (“the boy” or “the Christ Child”) in the 19th century for the arrival of an unusually warm ocean current off the coast that reduced their catch just before Christmas.
Scientists chose the name La NiƱa as the opposite of El NiƱo. Between the two events, there is a “neutral” phase.
El NiƱo
El NiƱo can weaken consistent trade winds that blow east to west across the tropical Pacific, influencing weather by affecting the movement of warm water across this vast ocean.
This weakening warms the usually cooler central and eastern sides of the ocean, altering rainfall over the equatorial Pacific and wind patterns around the world.
The extra heat at the surface of the Pacific releases energy into the atmosphere that can temporarily drive up global temperatures, which is why El NiƱo years are often among the warmest on record.
“All else being equal, a typical El NiƱo event tends to cause a temporary increase in the global mean temperature on the order of 0.1 Ā°C – 0.2 Ā°C,” Nat Johnson, an NOAA meteorologist, told AFP.
El āÆNiƱo occurs every two to seven years.
It typically results in drier conditions across southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, and northern Brazil, and wetter conditions in the Horn of Africa, the southern United States, Peru and Ecuador.
Another record?
The last El NiƱo occurred in 2023-2024, contributing to making 2023 the second highest year on record and 2024 the all-time high.
Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, told AFP in January that 2026 could be “another record-breaking year” if El NiƱo appears this year.
However, El NiƱo’s impact would be higher in 2027 than in 2026 if it develops in the second half of this year, said Tido Semmler, a climate scientist at Ireland’s National Meteorological Service.
“It takes time for the global atmosphere to react to the El NiƱo,” he said.
“Having said this, there is a risk of 2026 being the warmest year on record even without El NiƱo, due to the global warming trend,” Semmler told AFP.
“2027 would face an increased risk of getting a record warm year if El NiƱo developed in the second half of 2026,” he added.
La NiƱa
The latest La NiƱa episode was relatively weak and short lived, starting in December 2024 and due to enter a neutral phase during the Februady-April period.
La NiƱa cools the eastern Pacific Ocean for a period of about one to three years, generating the opposite effects to El NiƱo on global weather.
It leads to wetter conditions in parts of Australia, southeast Asia, India, southeast Africa and northern Brazil, while causing drier conditions in parts of South America.
La NiƱa did not stop 2025 from being the third hottest on record.
New calculation
The NOAA adopted in February a new way of determining El NiƱo and La NiƱa events.
The old Oceanic NiƱo Index (ONI) compared the three-month average sea surface temperature one region of the Pacific with a 30-year average in the same area.
But as the oceans have been warming rapidly, that old 30-year average can be out of date.
The new method, the Relative Oceanic NiƱo Index (RONI), compares how warm or cool the east-central Pacific is compared to the rest of the tropics.
The NOAA said RONI is a “clearer, more reliable way” to track El NiƱo and La NiƱa in real time.
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Ā© Agence France-Presse
Article Source:
Press Release/Material by Laurent Thomet | AFP
Featured image credit: Birger Strahl | Unsplash
