PUERTO VALLARTA (PVDN) – The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced the development of the El Niño weather phenomenon in the tropical Pacific, marking its first emergence in seven years. The organization has forecast a likely surge in global temperatures due to El Niño’s significant impact on weather patterns and storm activity worldwide.
Following several months of alerting to the possibility, the WMO now estimates a 90% likelihood of the El Niño event persisting through the second half of 2023. However, the intensity of the phenomenon is expected to remain moderate.
The advent of El Niño is expected to significantly increase the chances of temperature records being broken, resulting in extreme heat events across the globe and within oceanic regions, according to WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
Taalas emphasized that the declaration of the El Niño event serves as an urgent call for governments worldwide to prepare strategies to mitigate its impact on health, ecosystems, and economies. He highlighted the importance of early warnings and proactive responses to the extreme weather events associated with this major climate event, which are crucial to protecting lives and livelihoods.
El Niño, a naturally occurring weather pattern associated with warm ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, generally occurs every two to seven years. Its episodes typically last around nine to 12 months. The current El Niño event is emerging against the backdrop of climate changes driven by human activities.
The WMO had previously predicted in a May report a 98% chance that at least one of the next five years—and the five-year period as a whole—will set a new record as the warmest on record. The same report, created in conjunction with partners worldwide, including the UK Meteorological Organization, predicted a 66% chance that annual average global temperatures between 2023 and 2027 would temporarily exceed pre-industrial levels by at least 1.5°C for at least one year.
Chris Hewitt, Director of the Climate Service, described the development as “another wake-up call” and an “early warning” that global efforts to curb climate change are off course from the targets established at the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The warmest year on record as per WMO was 2016, primarily due to a potent El Niño event combined with anthropogenic warming due to greenhouse gas emissions. In 2022, however, a triple-dip La Niña cooling led to global mean temperatures about 1.15°C above the average recorded between 1850 and 1900.
El Niño is known to increase rainfall in parts of southern South America, the southern United States, the Horn of Africa, and Central Asia while potentially causing severe droughts in Australia, Indonesia, parts of southern Asia, Central America, and northern South America.
The WMO’s ‘Global Seasonal Climate Updates’ have recently begun to include the effects of other primary climate drivers, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Arctic Oscillation, and the Indian Ocean Dipole. Consequently, the above-average sea surface temperatures anticipated to result from El Niño will contribute to above-normal land temperatures.
As of July, the WMO predicts that positive temperature anomalies will occur “without exception” in all land areas across both hemispheres.
PUERTO VALLARTA (PVDN) - The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced the development of the El Niño weather phenomenon in the tropical Pacific, marking its . . .
