BRUSSELS: Scientists have predicted that, as a result of climate change and the anticipated return of the El Nino weather phenomenon, the world’s average temperature will surge to record high in 2023 or 2024.
According to climate projections, the world will witness a return to El Nino later this year following three years of the cooler La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which typically reduces global temperatures significantly.
During an El Nino, warm water is pushed eastward and the winds flowing around the equator slow down, raising the temperature of the ocean’s surface.
El Nino is frequently linked to record-breaking global temperatures. Although it is unknown whether this will occur in 2023 or 2024, Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, believes it is more likely than not. According to climate models, El Nino conditions will likely return in the late boreal summer, and a significant El Nino may form later in the year, according to Buontempo.
Although climate change has contributed to severe temperatures even in years without the El Nino phenomena, 2016 was the warmest year recorded so far. The past eight years were the hottest on record, which is a reflection of the long-term warming trend caused by greenhouse gas emissions. El Nino-driven temperatures, according to Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute, might exacerbate the effects of climate change that nations are currently experiencing, such as severe heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires.
Given that the world has continued to become warmer and that people are still using fossil fuels, there is a significant risk that 2023 will be considerably hotter than 2016 if El Nino develops, Otto added. In a report released on Thursday, EU Copernicus scientists evaluated the extreme weather that the planet encountered in 2017, which was also the fifth-warmest year ever recorded. In 2022, Europe saw the warmest summer on record, while Pakistan suffered catastrophic flooding brought on by climate change. Meanwhile, Antarctic sea ice levels reached a record low in February.
According to Copernicus, the average global temperature is currently 1.2C higher than it was in pre-industrial times. Global CO2 emissions increased last year despite the majority of the world’s major polluters promising to eventually reduce their net emissions to zero.
