El Niño ties record intensity months before peak, scientist says
Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific have tied the record intensity of the 2015–16 El Niño, Berkeley Earth climatologist Zeke Hausfather told AFP — and September may become the record month.
The strengthening El Niño weather pattern has tied for the most intense on record on a widely used measure, months before it is expected to reach its peak, climatologist Zeke Hausfather told AFP on Monday. AFP report
Hausfather, a scientist at Berkeley Earth and co-author of UN climate change reports, said the sea surface temperature anomaly in the tropical Pacific now stands at 3.07°C — matching the level recorded during the 2015–16 El Niño. Record-level reading
“This month (September) is very likely to have the highest monthly anomalies on record, barring something quite unexpected in the coming week,” he said in an email. His figures, published on the Climate Brink dashboard, draw on satellite-and-buoy sea surface data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), measuring how far the Niño 3.4 region sits above its 30-year average. How it is measured
One caveat: NOAA itself has shifted to a newer method, the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI), which gauges the same region against warming across the whole tropical belt. On that metric the current El Niño is still below the record, though scientists expect it to eventually break it. Newer metric
The effects are already being felt from Central America to Indonesia, with severe drought gripping parts of Central America, AFP reported. Impact felt already
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