El Niño, global climate model linked to intense heat, is expected by the fall

The United Nations forecasting agency says that "a new peak" in global temperatures is likely.

Forecasters from the World Meteorological Organization report an increased chance of the global climate pattern known as El Niño occurring by the end of summer. This comes with an increased risk of above normal temperatures in 2024.

Although there is no clear picture of the strength yet of the El Niño event or how long it might last, even a relatively mild episode could affect rainfall and temperatures worldwide.

"The development of 'El Niño will most likely lead to a new peak in global warming and increase the chances of breaking temperature records,' said Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the meteorological organization, in a press release.

El Niño is associated with warmer temperatures below normal ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. tend to bring wetter, cooler conditions to much of the south, and warmer conditions to parts of the north.

Elsewhere, El Niño may bring increased rainfall in southern South America and the Horn of Africa, and severe drought in Australia, Indonesia and parts of southern Asia.

El Niño, along with its La Niña counterpart, is part of the intermittent cycle known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, which has a large influence on annual variations in weather patterns around the world.

ENSO is a natural phenomenon, and scientists are still studying exactly how human-caused climate change over the past 150 years may be impacting behavior and the dynamics of El Niño and La Niña events, with some studies suggesting that El Niño events could be more extreme in a warmer future.

Conditions in the tropical Pacific are in a neutral state since the end of the last La Niña event this year. La Niña conditions had persisted for three rare consecutive Northern Hemisphere winters, accentuating Atlantic hurricane seasons and prolonging a severe drought across much of the western United States.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Yet despite the cooling effect that La Niña usually has, the past eight years have been the hottest on record, a worrying addition to the long-term pattern of temperatures that have not stopped rising as the world continues to emit greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas resources.

According to World Meteorological Organization outlook, there is about a 60% chance that El Niño will form between May and July, and an 80% chance that it will form between July and September. The predictions are based on observations of wind patterns and ocean temperatures as well as climate modelling, said Wilfran Moufouma-Okia, head of the organization's Climate Prediction Services Division, which is an agency of the United Nations.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a similar outlook last month. Both groups warned that while El Niño events are associated with certain typical conditions, they play out differently each time. But in general, the hottest year in any decade will be an El Niño year and the coldest a La Niña year, according to data from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.