El Niño is coming to an end and with it, scientists hope, a period of about a year in which the planet’s temperatures reached unprecedented peaks for ten consecutive months. Known to climatologists by the name of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), what is officially ending, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the USA and its Indian and Australian counterparts, is a meteorological phenomenon that historically recurs every 5-7 years – becoming 3-4 gradually, experts suspect, of human-generated climate change – causing significant warming of the waters of the Pacific Ocean, and, with it, of all the world’s seas, which in 2024 broke every temperature record. La Niña, cold phase antagonist of child it should start between June and August, after a neutral transition period.
What summer 2024 will be like
At this point it is logical to ask what summer awaits us. The temperatures above 30 degrees that were recorded in Italy at the beginning of April seemed to many to be the prelude to another scorching summer. Will La Niña be able to avert it? Although it is still early to make predictions on the progress of the summer season, one thing is practically certain: in the northern hemisphere, and therefore also in Italy, it will still be influenced by El Niño. The meteorological phenomenon is born and dies in the Pacific Ocean, but it takes time before the consequences of its passage give way to those of its cold counterpart. How much time? Between 6 and 8 months, according to NOAA. There are therefore no certain forecasts yet, but the summer of 2024 begins with conditions similar to those of 2023, if not worse, due to the still high sea temperatures.
How hot is it because of El Niño?
El Niño was thus named by Ecuadorian and Peruvian fishermen, who cyclically saw fish disappear from the sea around Christmas due to excessive temperatures. In addition to warming, it brings drought in some areas of the world, especially Asia and Africa, and abundant rainfall in others. What climate scientists are wondering, however, is how much of the increase in temperatures in 2023 and 2024 is due to El Niño – which is a natural phenomenon – and how much is due to human activities. If the reduction brought about by La Niña were smaller than expected, in fact, it would mean that the planet has entered a new phase of unpredictable warming, within which several points of no return risk being exceeded which would make it virtually impossible to reverse the increase and intensification of climate change.
