The oceans just reached their hottest temperature on record as El Niño looms. Here are 6 things to watch for.
— The oceans have been record-warm for the past four years, scientists reported in January. Then in mid-March, climatologists noted that global sea surface temperature climbed to a new high.
"Right now, the atmosphere and the ocean are both in sync and screaming 'El Niño rapid development' over the next few months," he said. Countries pledged in the Paris Climate Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees -- and preferably to 1.5 degrees -- compared to pre-industrial temperatures. Scientists consider 1.5 degrees of warming as a key tipping point, beyond which the chances of extreme flooding, drought, wildfires and food shortages could increase dramatically.
Whatever the exact level of heating El Niño brings, some of its impacts -- including extreme temperatures -- are very likely to be unprecedented, Scaife said."Each time we now get an El Niño, it's adding on to an ever-larger amount of global warming that we've accrued."California has seen an onslaught of rain and snow in recent months. That could intensify during El Niño.
"Whereas La Niña is historically a 'drought maker' for the continental United States, El Niño is a 'drought breaker,'" Rippey told CNN."Although the exact location of drought, or lack thereof, varies considerably from event to event." For Australia -- still reeling from extensive flooding -- El Niño is likely to bring much drier, hotter weather, especially in the eastern areas of the country. Since 1900, 18 of the 27 El Niño years have meant widespread winter and spring drought, a spokesperson for Australia's Bureau of Meteorology told CNN.
One of the first fingerprints of El Niño, according to Gottschalck, will be evident in the changes in tropical cyclone activity. As El Niño forms and strengthens later this year, Peru could be at even greater risk of more flooding. The government is already set to investmore than $1 billionon climate and weather measures to prevent the worst consequences.El Niño is an ocean heater, and warmer water is bad news for coral reefs.
"What's being predicted here is very scary," said Peter Houk, a professor at the University of Guam Marine Laboratory who studies coral in Micronesia."Every time one comes it grows a little bit more in intensity."
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