This year’s El Nino weather pattern will be the biggest in over a century and could make 2027 the hottest year globally, Britain’s national weather agency predicted Friday.
An El Nino weather event happens when warming sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific trigger worldwide changes in winds, atmospheric pressure and rainfall, as well as higher global temperatures overall. scientists agree climate change increases its impacts While it is part of a natural cycle. El Nino typically results in drier conditions across southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, and northern Brazil, and wetter conditions in the Horn of Africa, the southern United States, Peru and Ecuador.
El Nino occurs when water temperatures rise at least 0.5 C above the baseline. Temperatures in the Pacific region are currently running about 2.6 C above a rolling 30-year average, according to the Climate Brink dashboard based on data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the weather agency, told the BBC: “We are expecting the biggest El Nino for over a century, peaking at something over three degrees — that is unheard of in modern climate records. A record El Nino would be “adding to the stresses of climate change” following a summer of heatwaves across Europe, the Met Office said in a blog. If the forecast is accurate, then 2026 “will far exceed our recent experience of El Nino and its worldwide climate influences”, said the physicist who specialises in climate modelling.
