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A rapidly intensifying El Niño, fuelled by exceptionally warm waters in the Pacific, is raising the prospect of months of extreme heat, floods, drought and disruptive weather across large parts of the world.
The climate pattern has yet to reach its peak and is expected to persist through February 2027, with forecasters warning of unusually warm conditions across much of the planet in the coming months.
El Niño, already firmly established in the tropical Pacific, is expected to become “very strong” and peak around the end of the year, according to new forecasts from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The likelihood of El Niño persisting through February 2027 is now close to 100 per cent.
The unusually high level of confidence reflects the strength of the current event and the exceptional warming beneath the surface of the tropical Pacific, where a vast reservoir of warm water could continue to fuel El Niño in the months ahead.
In some parts of the Pacific, subsurface temperatures in July and early August were more than 8 degrees Celsius above normal.
The combination points to an unusually powerful climate event unfolding on a planet already significantly warmer because of greenhouse gas emissions.
“El Niño is being supersized before our eyes,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a press release on Thursday.
“The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up.”
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern that typically develops every two to seven years when waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific become unusually warm.
The warming can alter atmospheric circulation across vast distances, affecting rainfall and temperature patterns in many parts of the world.
However, the current El Niño is developing against an unusually warm backdrop.
Global oceans are already experiencing exceptionally high temperatures, creating a hotter baseline on which the natural climate cycle is unfolding.
Scientists have not established that human-caused climate change directly increases the frequency or intensity of El Niño. However, a warmer atmosphere and ocean can amplify some of its impacts by increasing the heat and moisture available to fuel extreme weather.
The latest observations show how rapidly the current event is strengthening.
The Niño 3.4 index, a closely watched measure of ocean temperatures in the central tropical Pacific, averaged 1.5°C above normal from May through July.
By July, the anomaly had reached 2°C, while weekly readings between late July and mid-August climbed as high as 2.6°C.
The unusual heat also extends well below the ocean surface, suggesting that the warming is not temporary and that El Niño still has considerable energy to draw on.
A very strong El Niño does not necessarily mean that every region will experience extreme weather of the same intensity.
From September through November, however, forecasters expect above-normal temperatures across much of the world’s land and ocean surface.
Rainfall patterns are also beginning to show the characteristic influence of El Niño, increasing the likelihood of heavy rainfall and flooding in some regions while heightening the risk of drought in others.
Other climate patterns could further complicate the global picture.
A positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole, another large-scale shift in ocean temperatures that can influence rainfall across Asia, is expected to develop, while the tropical Atlantic is forecast to remain unusually warm.
The interaction of these climate systems makes it difficult to translate the overall strength of El Niño into a precise forecast for any individual country.
Taken together, however, the signals point towards a period of heightened global climate risk.
“El Niño means ‘little boy’ in Spanish, but it has the potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies around the world,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said.
“We are already seeing the disruption and devastation caused by droughts and floods, and we expect these impacts to worsen as El Niño intensifies.”
The forecast has prompted an exceptional international response, with the WMO strengthening coordination with national meteorological and hydrological services to improve forecasts and early-warning systems as climate risks increase.
The effort is intended to help governments and humanitarian organisations prepare for possible impacts on vulnerable sectors, including agriculture, public health, energy and water supplies.
“This exceptional El Niño demands exceptional preparedness and response,” Saulo said.
The warning underscores how much of the current El Niño event may still lie ahead.
The phenomenon is already exceptionally strong, yet it has not reached its expected peak.
The question is no longer simply whether El Niño will intensify, but how much additional heat, extreme weather and disruption the world will face before the climate pattern begins to weaken.
Source: UN News