Weather, the effects of the end of El Niño. Scientists’ prediction: what will happen

El Niño is about to end. La Niña is about to arrive. In short: an end to the strong warming of surface waters across half the world, but cooling is on the way. But what does all this mean? The answer was given by scientists from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who provided some data on the phenomenon and explained what will happen in the coming years. But let’s start from the basics. El Niño is the name given by the fishermen of Ecuador and Peru to the periodic warming of the waters which brings with it a disappearance of the fish and literally means “the child”, understood as Baby Jesus. It was soon studied by meteorologists and climatologists who understood it was a global and much more complex phenomenon. Because El Niño, called the “Enso-El Niño Southern Oscillation” by experts, involves a large part of the earth’s climate and causes drought in some areas – such as Asia and Africa -, heavier rainfall in others and warmer temperatures across the globe. In the current scenario, El Niño – which is a natural phenomenon – adds to anthropogenic climate change so much as to push the temperatures of the last two years to unprecedented peaks.

But now that it’s about to end, what will happen? The eastern Pacific will cool due to the rise of colder currents, the waters will fill with many nutrients, the fish will return and La Niña will begin. As Paolo Virtuani reconstructed in Il Corriere della Sera, the good news is therefore that the hot wave would have come to an end. According to estimates, La Niña will develop between April and June and in the Northern Hemisphere – ours – its effects will be felt next autumn-winter. Despite this, however, the bad news is that the overall warming of our planet will continue for the rest of 2024. But not all experts are yet sure that El Niño is over: while the Australian and Indian meteorological offices have already proclaimed the end of the phenomenon, NOAA is more cautious. He estimated its end at an 85% probability, also adding that between April and June “a neutral transition condition will be established, with a 60% probability that between June and August we will move into the La Niña phase”.

We were talking about climate change. The return period of El Niño also suffered and decreased. “From an average of around 5-7 years, it has now been reduced to 3-4” – writes Virtuani. The increasingly rapid turnover between El Niño and La Niña could then be linked to climatic upheavals. Data that worries experts and others. According to the FAO: “The two cycles are much faster lately and decrease the possibility of adapting to changes”. Since last January, for example, West Africa has been “breaking heat records due to El Niño”. Numbers that pushed Joyce Kimutai, of Imperial College London, to think that “the drought in southern Africa seems to be fueled mainly by El Niño”. The local United Nations representative is of the same opinion and has launched a worried appeal for aid after the “devastating effects” of the seasonal rains aggravated by El Niño, currently causing almost 100 thousand displaced people.