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

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·
    11 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.