A 'Super El Niño' could cause alarmingly high temperatures globally including the UK in 2027.
As the UK braces for forecasts of scorching heat of up to 40°C this summer, experts predict next year could be even hotter because of an anticipated 'super El Niño,' which is expected to deliver record-high temperatures. Scientists attribute that to a weather pattern currently building in the Pacific Ocean, the Daily Star reported.
The impending heat could also beat the country's 2022 record, when the temperature surpassed 40°C for the first time. The Met Office is already projecting a 40 per cent possibility that could happen again this summer.
Countries Braced for Next Year's Super El Niño Event
The 'super El Niño' is also expected to bring intense heat to Australia, Indonesia, and the Philippines as it causes floods in Peru, Ecuador and the southern US. The EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service predicts an 82 per cent chance that the 'very strong' El Niño could develop this year.
'I think we're going to see weather events that we've never seen in modern history before,' Climate Specialist Jeff Berardelli told the outlet. University College London professor Mark Maslin also predicts the coming super El Niño could be the worst ever recorded.
The El Niño Phenomenon Explained
The El Niño phenomenon starts when intense heat is released from the Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere. This disrupts normal wind patterns and ocean temperatures, causing warm surface water from the western Pacific to swell eastward, toward South America.
Typically developing between March and June, El Niño peaks between November and February. The entire cycle lasts from nine to 12 months, although longer cycles have been recorded. The longest El Niño event on record lasted roughly 18 to 24 months, from 2014 to 2016.
El Niño usually strikes every few years, raising global temperatures from autumn and into the following summer. Previous El Niño events have wreaked havoc on food production worldwide, ruining Russia's wheat harvest in 2010 and damaging coffee crops in Brazil.
Approximately 3,000 deaths were reported in the UK when it experienced 40°C heat in July 2022, and the highest mortalities involved individuals aged 65 and older. That year's heat waves killed over 61,000 people across Europe, mostly in Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal, The Guardian reported.
Are El Niño and Climate Change Connected?
The 2022 heat waves were largely attributed to climate change, however. Climate expert Professor Friederike Otto, of Imperial College London, emphasised the need to address climate change more because El Niño is a natural, cyclical event.
'El Niño is a natural phenomenon. It comes and goes,' she told Euro News. 'Climate change, on the contrary, gets worse as long as we do not stop burning fossil fuels. So climate change is the reason to freak out... We have the knowledge and technology to go very, very far away from using fossil fuels.'
The anticipated super El Niño could increase the chances of elevated global mean temperatures next year, according to The Independent. This could affect sea temperatures in Europe and the UK, and the US to a lesser extent.
