The strong El Niño weather condition that added some extra heat to the already record warm global temperatures gone. The other cool side, La Nina, will likely arrive just in time for the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, federal meteorologists said.
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration declared dead Thursday the El Niño warming parts of the central Pacific. El Nino, although not a record holder for strength, formed a year ago was blamed, along with human-caused climate change and general ocean heat, for 12 months of heatwaves and extreme weather.
The world is now in a neutral condition with regards to the important natural El Niño Southern Oscillation, which distorts weather systems around the world. Neutral is when weather approaches long-term averages or normal, something that hasn’t happened as much recently as it used to, said NOAA physical scientist Michelle L’Heureux, who is the lead forecaster on the agency’s ENSO team. . But it probably won’t last, she added.
She said there is a 65% chance that a La Nina, a cooling of the same parts of the Pacific that often has opposite effects, will form in July, August and September. One of the biggest effects of La Nina is that it tends to make the Atlantic hurricane season more active, and the storm season begins its peak in August.
“The likelihood of a La Nina, along with record sea surface temperatures, is why the National Hurricane Center is predicting an extraordinary hurricane season,” said Kathie Dello, North Carolina state climatologist. “States from Texas to Maine are gearing up for an active year.”
Both El Nino and La Nina create “potential hot spots” for extreme weather, but in different locations and types, L’Heureux said.
“La Nina tends, in the winter, to bring drier conditions across the southern region of the United States and if you add global warming to that, that could also mean that these drier conditions could intensify into droughts,” L’ said. Heureux.
That’s because storm systems, particularly in the winter, move slightly north with a shift in the jet stream during La Nina years, bringing more rain and snow north, L’Heureux said.
Although a La Nina tends to be colder, there will likely be a residual effect from El Nino’s exit on global temperatures, L’Heureux said. This year saw every month breaking global records until here.
No more than 8% of last year’s record heat could be attributed to El Niño and other natural variability, a panel of 57 scientists concluded earlier this month. The rest came from human-caused climate change resulting from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
A 1999 economic study found that the drought caused by La Nina cost US agriculture between $2.2 billion and $6.5 billion, which is much more than the $1.5 billion cost of El Niño. A neutral ENSO is better for agriculture.
Given La Niña’s connection to Atlantic hurricanes and drought in the United States, it makes sense that they are generally more expensive, but every El Niño and La Niña is different, so people and governments should prepare for them, he said. meteorologist and economist Michael Ferrari, chief scientific officer at AlphaGeo, a company that operates in financial and climate investments.
The El Nino that just ended “wasn’t a record-breaker in anyone’s book, but it was probably in the top five,” L’Heureux said. And it has increased overall global temperatures and brought more humidity to the southern United States this year, along with drier conditions in parts of South America and Central America, she said. The Horn of Africa has become wetter.
Coral reef experts say the combination of record ocean temperatures and increased warming caused by El Nino have led to a major global bleaching event threatening and sometimes killing vulnerable corals.
Before this year’s El Niño, the world had consecutive La Ninas, which is unusual, said L’Heureux. Some studies have shown that the world should expect more El Niños and La Ninas — and fewer neutral ones — as the world warms, but it’s still an unresolved question, she said.
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