BELGIUM: Climate scientists predict that the world’s average temperature could break a new record in 2023 or 2024 due to climate change and the return of the El Nino weather phenomenon. This year, the world will witness a return to El Nino, its warmer counterpart, after three years of the cooler La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean.
El Nino occurs when winds slow down along the equator, raising the ocean’s surface temperature. It is linked to temperature records worldwide, and Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, believes it is more likely to occur in 2023 or 2024.
Buontempo claims that climate models indicate that El Nino conditions will return in the late boreal summer and that a strong El Nino may develop later in the year.
2016 was the hottest year on record, coinciding with a powerful El Nino. Climate change has caused severe temperatures even in years without the phenomenon, and the past eight years have been the eight hottest on record for the planet.
Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute, believes that El Nino-driven temperatures could exacerbate the effects of climate change, such as heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires.
EU Copernicus scientists released a report on Thursday that evaluated the extreme weather that the planet encountered in 2017, which was also the fifth-warmest year ever recorded. This suggests that 2023 could be significantly hotter than 2016.
Climate change has caused catastrophic flooding in Pakistan and Europe and caused Antarctic sea ice levels to reach record lows. Copernicus estimates that the average global temperature is now 1.2 degrees Celsius higher than it was in the pre-industrial era.
Prof. Adam Scaife explains that the El Nio-La Nia cycle affects various parts of the planet, and science can now predict when these events will occur months in advance. To be prepared, emergency services should be available, and crops should be chosen carefully.
Prof. James Hansen and colleagues predict that 2024 will be the warmest year on record due to La Nia, which is expected to persist for a fourth year. Heating costs will increase as air pollution levels decrease.
Despite the majority of the main emitters around the globe promising to reduce their net emissions to zero eventually, the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere increased last year.
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