Geneva [Switzerland], September 4: Fuelled by exceptionally warm Pacific waters, the El Niño climate pattern is intensifying and has yet to peak. Forecasters are almost certain it will persist through February 2027 - with unusually warm conditions expected across much of the world in the coming months.
El Niño is strengthening rapidly in the Pacific Ocean, raising the prospect of months of extreme heat, floods, drought, and disruptive weather around the globe.
The phenomenon, already firmly established, is expected to become "very strong" and peak around the end of the year, according to new forecasts from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
The likelihood that El Niño will persist through February 2027 is now close to 100 per cent. Never before has the UN weather agency issued such an unequivocal forecast for El Niño or its cooler counterpart, La Niña.
And beneath the surface of the tropical Pacific lies another cause for concern. An enormous reservoir of unusually warm water that could continue feeding El Niño in the months ahead.
In some parts of the Pacific, subsurface temperatures in July and early August were more than eight degrees Celsius (around 14 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal.
The combination points toward 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 Antonio 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. That warming can alter atmospheric circulation thousands of miles away, shifting rainfall and temperature patterns everywhere.
But this El Niño is developing against an unusual backdrop. The oceans are already exceptionally warm, providing a hotter baseline on which the natural climate cycle is playing out.
Scientists have not established that man-made climate change is increasing or intensifying El Niño. But a warmer atmosphere and ocean can amplify some of its consequences, increasing the heat and moisture available to fuel extreme weather.
The latest measurements show how quickly the current event is developing.
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, it had reached 2°C, and weekly readings from late July through mid-August climbed as high as 2.6 degrees.
The heat extends well below the surface - a sign that the warming is not fleeting and that El Niño has considerable fuel left.
Source: Emirates News Agency
