The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that an intensifying El Nino is heading to historically strong levels, with an 81% chance of becoming “very strong” by fall. The weather agency said the system should rank among the most intense El Ninos since it started tracking them in 1950. Ordinary people don’t get a vote in any of this. The atmosphere, the oceans, and the institutions that claim to manage the fallout keep moving while the rest of us are left to absorb the damage.
Who Gets Hit First
El Nino is a natural warming of the equatorial Pacific that alters weather patterns across the globe. Meteorologists said its biggest impacts — droughts, downpours and heat waves — are likely to be felt most in the fall and winter. This El Nino formed only last month, already zipped past the weak stage and is now considered moderate, with no indications of slowing its strengthening, the government forecast said.
Ocean temperatures in key parts of the Pacific that help indicate El Nino’s strength are at or near record highs for this time of year, partly because it comes on top of ocean warming from human-caused climate change, meteorologists said. Emily Becker, a University of Miami scientist who works with the NOAA El Nino forecast team, said, “It’s pretty extreme,” and added, “Not unprecedented, but very unusual.” Becker said it will rival the 1997-1998 El Nino, while other meteorologists predict this one could be even stronger.
The World Bank said the El Nino that started in 1997 led to 23,000 deaths in weather disasters, increased poverty rates in some countries and cost governments as much as $45 billion. That’s the kind of bill the powerful call a forecast and the rest of the world calls a crisis. The costs land far from the offices where the numbers get tallied.
What the Forecast Means for People
Becker said a very strong El Nino does not translate to even more intense extreme weather, but makes those conditions more likely. It increases the chances for most of the southern U.S. to be rainier in the winter, and it also boosts the likelihood of warmer winter conditions for the northern United States and Canada. Global impacts made more likely include a drier Indonesia and a warmer and wetter eastern Pacific, Becker said.
El Nino usually dampens Atlantic hurricane season. Colorado State University, which pioneered hurricane season forecasts, on Wednesday dramatically reduced its prediction for number of storms “due to increased confidence in a strong or very strong El Nino.” The forecasters predict overall hurricane activity in the Atlantic will be “well below normal.”
The Heat the System Keeps Dumping
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, said, “This is not a run-of-the-mill El Nino.” He said that not only is it already breaking records for the time of year, but unlike past super El Ninos, it is on top of considerable background warming from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. “We might not expect to see the exact same impacts from this event as we have seen in historical ones,” he said.
Swain wrote in a blog post that El Nino also acts as a “thermostat” for global climate by liberating years’ worth of accumulated heat stored in the subsurface tropical Pacific Ocean and dumping it into the atmosphere, where it eventually dissipates, but not before warming the entire planet in the meantime. Many climate scientists are predicting that 2027 — because of pent up heat — will break the 2024 global high temperature record set by the last strong El Nino. Zack Labe, a climate scientist at Climate Central, said, “A strong El Nino would raise the odds of dramatic new climate records over the next 6 to 12 months,” and said it could give a taste of an even warmer world to come.
The institutions can measure it, forecast it, and warn about it. They can’t stop the machinery that keeps loading heat into the system. The people who live with the storms, the floods, the droughts and the price tag are the ones left to carry the weight.