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The biggest episodes of the past have altered the course of human events, according to researchers. An emerging one is drawing historic comparisons.

Note that while this is a distinct possibility, it is still far from certain.

  • trailee@sh.itjust.works
    12·
    3 days ago

    El Niño events are measured by looking at temperature levels in a vast rectangular zone in the central Pacific. In a moderate El Niño, temperatures might climb, say, 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, above a longer-term average. But in the biggest El Niños of the past 50 years — the ones that started in 1982, 1997, and 2015 — temperatures have soared 2 degrees Celsius or more beyond the norm. Each of those events levied a global economic toll.

    This year, many forecasts say the temperature could increase by an unprecedented 3 degrees Celsius. Even the 1877 El Niño, by the best estimates, didn’t have that magnitude.

    “A number of the models now show a real chance for a record-setting El Niño event,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth. “It is still too early to know for sure.”

    El Niño events typically peak in strength late in a calendar year, and then cause warmer global temperatures on land in the months that follow. As a result, many scientists predict that 2027 will be the warmest year on record.