People take a break under a cooling mist as the Japanese government issues a warning over a possible power crunch due to a heatwave in Tokyo, Japan June 28, 2022. Reuters |
Climate models suggest that after three years of the La Nina
weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which generally lowers global
temperatures slightly, the world will experience a return to El Nino, the
warmer counterpart, later this year.
During El Nino, winds blowing west along the equator slow
down, and warm water is pushed east, creating warmer surface ocean
temperatures.
“El Nino is normally associated with record-breaking
temperatures at the global level. Whether this will happen in 2023 or 2024 is
yet known, but it is, I think, more likely than not,” said Carlo Buontempo,
director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Climate models suggest a return to El Nino conditions in the
late boreal summer, and the possibility of a strong El Nino developing towards
the end of the year, Buontempo said.
The world’s hottest year on record so far was 2016,
coinciding with a strong El Nino – although climate change has fuelled extreme
temperatures even in years without the phenomenon.
The last eight years were the world’s eight hottest on
record – reflecting the longer-term warming trend driven by greenhouse gas
emissions.
Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at Imperial College
London’s Grantham Institute, said El Nino-fuelled temperatures could worsen the
climate change impacts countries are already experiencing – including severe
heatwaves, drought and wildfires.
“If El Niño does develop, there is a good chance 2023 will
be even hotter than 2016 – considering the world has continued to warm as
humans continue to burn fossil fuels,” Reuters quoted Otto.
EU Copernicus scientists published a report on Thursday
assessing the climate extremes the world experienced last year, its
fifth-warmest year on record.
Europe experienced its hottest summer on record in 2022,
while climate change-fuelled extreme rain caused disastrous flooding in
Pakistan, and in February, Antarctic sea ice levels hit a record low.
The world’s average global temperature is now 1.2C higher
than in pre-industrial times, Copernicus said.
Despite most of the world’s major emitters pledging to
eventually slash their net emissions to zero, global CO2 emissions last year
continued to rise.