Last year, the planet experienced the hottest year on record. One of the factors contributing to this extreme heat was El Niño, a natural and cyclical warming in a region of the Pacific Ocean that, along with the atmosphere, can cause global temperatures to rise. Last year, it began in June.
Typically, the global atmosphere responds to El Niño the following year, raising the question: could 2024 be even hotter than 2023?
There are many factors to consider:
According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with the end of El Niño, ocean conditions are beginning to shift to a neutral phase, with a 60% chance of entering a cooling phase known as La Niña.
La Niña tends to have the opposite effect of El Niño on global temperatures, but that doesn’t mean the planet will suddenly enter a period of cooler-than-normal temperatures.
This is because El Niño and La Niña are part of a recurring climate pattern that occurs approximately every seven to ten years.
These phenomena are relatively new discoveries, dating back about 60 years, so scientists don’t have much historical data. But they know that not all events are the same. El Niños can be mild, strong, or, as we saw in 2015-2016, extremely strong, referred to as a “super” El Niño.
Although 2023 was not a “super” El Niño year, it turned out to be warmer than 2016, which is partly due to the fact that in the eight years between the two El Niños, global temperatures continued to rise as a result of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Another factor that may have contributed to the warmer temperatures in 2023 was the abnormally warm ocean temperatures.
But what was strange in 2023, climate scientists say, was that temperatures surged starting in June and continued to rise. Last March was the tenth consecutive month with record temperatures, even if only by a minimal margin.
Even if La Niña develops in the typical way, global temperatures are so high that the phenomenon may not have as much effect this year.
At this moment, temperatures for 2024 seem to be more aligned with the upward trend that climatologists are already accustomed to seeing.
Last week, Berkeley Earth, an independent, nonprofit climate analysis organization, released its March 2024 update and predicted that 2024 had a 59% chance of being the hottest year on record and a 41% chance of entering the books as the second hottest year in history.
Well, get ready for summer!
Source: CNC News