ISLAMABAD: A natural weather event known as El Niño has begun in the Pacific Ocean, likely adding more heat to a planet already facing temperature rise under climate change.
US scientists confirmed that El Niño had started and it would possibly make 2024 the world’s hottest year and would perhaps help push the world past the 1.5C warming benchmark.
The experts also maintained that the current phase would also affect world weather, including possible drought in Australia, excessive rain to the southern US, and affecting the monsoon in India. The stage could last until next spring, followed by a decrease in its impacts.
Commenting on the situation, Adam Scaife, head of long-range predictions at the UK Met Office, said that it intensified in recent days as predictions were there and would reach its peak at the end of the current year in terms of its intensity.
He added that a record rise in global temperature next year would be probable. It depends on how big El Niño turns out to be; that would help us to know that we would have a new record global temperature in 2024.
El Niño, warming weather
The hot phase, called El Niño, happens every two to seven years and witnesses warm waters come to the surface off the coast of South America and spread across the ocean, pushing sufficient amounts of heat up into the atmosphere.
Besides some other warm years, 2016 was the world’s hottest after a powerful El Niño event.
Weather agencies and experts around the globe carried out different criteria to decide when this hot phase is upon us.
For scientists in the US, their definition needs the ocean to be 0.5C hotter than usual for a month, the atmosphere must be seen to be responding to this heat, and there must be clear evidence the event is persisting.
Meanwhile, the researchers and experts believe this event has an 84% chance of exceeding moderate strength by the end of this year.
They also say there’s a one in four chance of this event surpassing 2C at its peak, which is getting into the territory of a “super El Niño”.
Effects of El Niño
Researchers expect these would comprise drier weather conditions in Australia and some parts of Asia, with a significant weakening of the monsoon in India. Southern US states will likely be wetter in the coming winter. El Niño usually strengthens drought conditions in Africa.
In case of intensified El Niño, there might be considerable human and economic costs. The strong El Niño in 1997-98 cost over $5 trillion, with more than 23,000 deaths from storms and floods.
At present Global temperatures are hovering around 1.1C above the average in the period from 1850-1900.
