[Source:Reuters]
The World Meteorological Organization, in its monthly climate bulletin, has stated that this year’s El Niño will intensify before peaking in December and is nearly 100% certain to last until February 2027.
The WMO further states that sea surface temperatures are also set to break records.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the strengthening event will affect economies, ecosystems and communities worldwide.
The UN weather body said sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific, the region at the heart of the El Niño phenomenon, are expected to reach a record 3.7 degrees Celsius above normal from October to December.
The forecast temperature anomaly is significantly higher than the previous record of 2.6C from November 2015 to January 2016.
WMO forecasts indicate the event could be one of the strongest since at least 1950.
El Niño is the warm phase of the naturally occurring El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle, a climate pattern that influences weather around the world.
It tends to cause higher global temperatures and disrupt rainfall patterns across large regions, bringing drought in some areas and heavy rains in others. It typically occurs every two to seven years.
Mean global temperatures in August reached 16.96C, tying with July 2023 as the hottest month on record, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Climate Impact Lab predicted last month that this year’s “super-El Niño” was likely to result in as many as 451,000 excess deaths across the globe from June to February 2027.
