NOAA, the US agency that deals with oceanic and atmospheric dynamics, has just announced that the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean are warming beyond expectations giving way to the phenomenon known as EL NIÑO. The name means “the child” because it reaches its peak around Christmas, the day of the birth of the baby Jesus.
This kind of anomaly is a completely natural fact linked to both atmospheric causes (high pressures, strength of the trade winds, etc.) and ocean currents. Historically it has one periodic recurrence of about 3/5 years though in the last period there has been a greater frequency with increasingly incisive and catastrophic effects. Among the causes, according to the latest studies in the field of climatology (IPPC), the increase in temperatures linked to the ongoing global warming.
We are talking about a phenomenon that concerns a very vast surface, practically the entire Pacific Ocean, which can have some serious consequences on the earth’s climate. Just think of the last intense episode of El Niño, that of 2015-16, with ocean waters that even exceeded the norm by +3°C. This enormous quantity of heat was then transferred to the atmosphere, with an increase in the earth’s temperature and climatic anomalies in almost every part of the world. You will remember the extremely hot summer values of 2015, which went down in history as the third hottest in Italy since temperatures were recorded.
According to the latest measurements, the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean they already register an anomaly of 0.3°C, thus an apparently still weak Niño. If the temperature were to rise beyond the threshold of 0.5°C, the consequences could be serious for Europe as well. Statistically, in fact, the El Niño phenomenon is related to a greater activity of the anticyclone of African origin, which tends to expand over Italy and Europe in the summer. The effects most immediate of these dynamics result in long-lasting heat waves with peaks of up to 40°C, drought (especially in central and southern Italy), and extreme weather events.
