El Niño, the effects that worry scientists: extreme weather events and record temperatures

According to Bhargavi Sakthivel, an economist at Bloomberg, El Niño comes at the worst possible time. And if his analysis is purely economic, in this beginning of the meteorological summer, there is a concurrence of factors and events which, put together, make climatologists worry, from water heating at the melting of sea ice.

After a May which, Noaa certifies, was the third hottest ever recorded (from the European data of Copernicus it would be the second) while the phenomenon of warming of equatorial seas in the Pacific (El Niño)which falls with a certain regularity, affects the whole world and has just begun to make itself felt in a world tried by economic crises, resources and inflation. We will perhaps see the effects of what could be a perfect storm in the coming months.

Let’s start with the measurements. What has alarmed some scientists are some very negative records. First of all the North Atlantic temperature which since March has been recording, practically every day, an unprecedented level in over 40 years. And the same goes for the average of seas and oceans around the globe between 60 degrees north and 60 degrees south latitude.

Among the reasons for this so abnormal heating according to some experts, there would also be a lack of transport of sand from the Sahara across the Atlantic by currents. Meteorologists call her “our pal Sal” (our friend Sal, which stands for Saharan air layer) because it has a deterrent effect on the formation of tropical storms and hurricanes. But like a cloud or the ash from an eruption, it’s an aerosol that also manages to shield part of the solar radiation, preventing the waters from heating up. This, so far, has not happened. Combined with the scarcity of currents which also have the merit of cooling the surface waters.

On the one hand, this is a cause for concern, on the other, the second Michael Mannthe climatologist “author” of the famous hockey sticks, one of the graphic symbols of global warming, this is not the real cause for concern, and should not be exaggerated. Because it is the trend that should alarm us, and not from today.

Some hypothesize that the reduction of sulphates from ship exhausts since 2020 has also something to do with it, which has reduced the emissions of a polluting particulate but at the same time partially shielded solar radiation. However, experts don’t all agree on this. What no one doubts is that even if it is an exceptional event, with a contributing cause of factors in a chaotic system, such as the global one, it is that more heat means more energy, which passes from the oceans to the atmosphere, even ‘it shows abnormal temperatures now become a trend. Generating extreme events that will become (and have already become) increasingly frequent.

On the other side of the world, they are the ice to worry. Antarctica lacks three million square kilometers of sea ice. It’s not what causes sea levels to rise, because it’s already floating. But melting under theinfluence of rising temperaturesof the atmosphere and of the waters, (as well as of the action of the currents that shatter it), the white, reflective surface, gives way to the dark of the oceans, which absorbs more solar radiation, the heat, which warms the waters and like a flywheel it resumes the well-known vicious circle.

In all of this, El Niño is just starting to make itself felt. The forecasts of the National Weather Service of Noaa do not exclude that it is a “strong El Niño” that will continue also in the coming autumn and winter. This too will mean more heat in the ocean waters and consequently in the atmosphere.

El Niño has already predictable effects, for example on the South Americawhere it brings more rain, theSouth West Asia and theAustralia they will have to face drought and fires, which are already an emergency, now an annual one, in many parts of the globe. Including North America in recent weeks.

But it is a sum of emergencies which, Professor Mann points out, takes place in a complex system that is difficult to interpret. Where, however, natural causes and human intervention contribute. But El Niño is coming and its effects will be felt.

The World Meteorological Organization (Wmo) goes so far as to say that with El Niño, the next few years will be the hottest ever with a 98% probabilityand which could even exceed one and a half degrees compared to the pre-industrial era: the first objective threshold of the Paris climate agreements, the most difficult one and which many, already seven years ago, had branded as impossible.

The threat of El Niño on the economy

Bloomberg, in an in-depth analysis of the feared effects of El Niño, speaks of a catastrophe looming over the next few years. Starting with the drought in the East and Southeast Pacific. The risk of famine for agriculture in many sectors is compounded by the increase in demand for energy due to rising temperatures and the scarcity of supply due to the dams of hydroelectric plants which become empty. A crisis that also hit Italy during the severe drought of 2022. In the past, this has already forced the China to de-energize industrial plants, including Apple and Tesla. Some areas affected by floods could see theextraction of materials essential for electronics.

Come on Developing countriesin Africa And Asia above all, they will be increasingly climatic refugees due to famines that could compromise crops and bring farms to their knees. The result will be therising prices of raw materials and basic necessities such as food. And it will obviously be the poorest who suffer the effects, even in “first world” countries.

The costs to deal with these effects, is the prediction of Bloombergthey will be very high. The Perufor example, plans to spend a billion dollars to mitigate the damage that El Niño will cause with heavy rains and floods. While in a global economy that is still slow to recover from the effects of inflation and the crisis due to Covid and the war, the nightmare according to economists is the stagflation: high levels of inflation in a context of economic contraction.