El Niño will persist until April 2024, UN warns – 11/08/2023 – Environment

The El Niño meteorological phenomenon, associated with an increase in global temperatures, will last until April 2024, warns the UN.

According to the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) bulletin published on Tuesday (7), there is a 90% probability that this cyclical phenomenon in the Pacific will persist until April 2024. It is also very likely that, “at its peak, it will reach to values ​​corresponding to an intense episode”.

In September, “sea surface temperatures in the central-eastern equatorial Pacific were moderate in magnitude,” the organization reported, noting that subsurface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific were “much higher than average.”

According to the organization, in the last four months, constant increases in sea surface temperatures have been recorded, and “new increases” are expected [embora mais fracos] these temperatures in the coming months, due to the intensity and nature of atmospheric-oceanic feedbacks”.

According to experts, “based on patterns observed in previous episodes and current long-term forecasts, the episode is expected to gradually lose strength during next spring in the northern hemisphere.” Furthermore, the likelihood of a cooling effect from a La Niña episode is almost non-existent.

“Next year could be even hotter. The increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity that capture heat in the atmosphere clearly and unequivocally contribute to this increase in temperatures”, declared the secretary general of the WMO , Petteri Taalas, quoted in the statement.

“Extreme phenomena, such as heat waves, droughts, forest fires, intense rains and floods will intensify in some regions, and this will have important consequences,” he added.

Record October

This Wednesday (8), scientists from Europe announced that it is “practically certain” that 2023 will be the hottest year in 125,000 years and that last month was the hottest October ever recorded on the planet.

The highest global mark for the month, in 2019, was easily broken, said the Climate Change Service of Copernicus, a European climate observatory.

“The record was broken by 0.4°C, which is a huge margin,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the service. In 2023, the average for the period was 15.38°C on the planet’s surface.

This exacerbated heat is the result of continuous emissions of greenhouse gases from human activity, combined with the occurrence of El Niño.

So far, 2023 has recorded another four consecutive months as the hottest for the period ever recorded — and July was also marked as the hottest month ever recorded in history. The previous record was from 2016, another El Niño year.