El Niño conditions are present and are expected to gradually strengthen into the Northern Hemisphere winter 2023-24.
Ready or not, here comes an El Niño system! The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Thursday issued an El Nino advisory, announcing the arrival of the climatic condition.
So, what does that mean? Well, El Niño is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (approximately between the International Date Line and 120°W), including the area off the Pacific coast of South America.
When active, El Niño has historically brought with it many record-breaking global high temperatures. Additionally, the world-wide shift in climatic patterns is known to shift global jet-stream patterns and bring moisture to the American Southwest, while also bringing wind-shear patterns to the east coast, disrupting conditions that would otherwise cause Hurricanes in the mid-Atlantic.
Some scientists believe that as the influences of El Niño increase over the fall and winter months, we may see global average temperatures shift as much as +1.5°C. For the past three years, we have been in the La Nina phase, denoted by lower than average temperatures in the Pacific. Given the current status of ongoing climate change, the impacts of El Niño could bring about previously unseen weather conditions/patterns in may parts of the world.
“A warming El Niño is expected to develop in the coming months and this will combine with human-induced climate change to push global temperatures into uncharted territory,” Taalas said at a news conference Wednesday. “This will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment. We need to be prepared.”
For more information on El Niño, here are some links and other resources related to the newly announced advisory:
The official advisory from NOAA’s website:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml
In TIME Magazine:
https://time.com/6285792/el-nino-has-started-2023/
From LA Times:
https://news.yahoo.com/el-ni-o-back-bringing-155547125.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o
THURSDAY, 08 JUNE 2023