PARIS, France (AFP): The European Union’s climate monitor said Friday that ocean temperatures are edging toward record highs as conditions shift toward a potentially powerful El Ni\u00f1o weather pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Samantha Burgess from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) said sea surface temperatures in recent days were just shy of the all-time highs of 2024 — and May looked set to break its own record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s a matter of days before we are back in record-breaking ocean SSTs (sea surface temperatures) again,” Burgess, strategic lead for climate at ECMWF, told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Copernicus Climate Change Service said daily sea surface temperatures in April “gradually inched” toward near-record highs, reflecting the transition to El Ni\u00f1o expected in the coming months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Copernicus, which is overseen by the ECMWF, said sea surface temperatures in April were the second-highest measured, with marine heatwaves breaking records in the ocean between the tropical Pacific and the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last month, the World Meteorological Organisation said El Ni\u00f1o conditions could develop as soon as May to July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One phase of a natural climate cycle in Pacific Ocean temperatures and trade winds, El Ni\u00f1o influences global weather and increases the likelihood of drought, heavy rainfall and other climate extremes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It also adds heat to a planet already warmed by burning fossil fuels. The last El Ni\u00f1o helped make 2023 and 2024 the second- and first-hottest years on record, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some weather agencies forecast the coming event will be even stronger — possibly rivalling a “super” El Ni\u00f1o three decades ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zeke Hausfather, a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent climate research organisation, wrote last week that a strong El Ni\u00f1o could significantly raise the chances of 2027 becoming the hottest year ever recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burgess said it was still too early to predict the event’s intensity with confidence, as forecasts made during the Northern Hemisphere spring could be unreliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But she said, regardless of its strength, this El Ni\u00f1o would not go unnoticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We’re likely to see 2027 exceed 2024 for the warmest year on record,” she said. El Ni\u00f1o’s impact on global temperatures typically comes the year after its peak, she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Copernicus said the upturn in ocean temperatures over March and April indicated the transition from neutral conditions to El Ni\u00f1o was underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scientists stress that El Ni\u00f1o alone is not driving the extraordinary ocean warmth or its knock-on effects, such as coral bleaching and marine heatwaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The phenomenon is unfolding against a backdrop of long-term global warming caused primarily by greenhouse gas emissions, with oceans absorbing around 90 per cent of the excess heat generated by human activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In its monthly bulletin, Copernicus said April was the third-hottest globally and 1.43 \u00b0C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial benchmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arctic sea ice remained near record lows in April while Europe endured varied conditions that set the stage for a hotter and drier summer at risk of drought or wildfires, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We just keep seeing extremes. Every month we have more data that the climate change impact is creating these extreme events,” said Burgess. RSS<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PARIS, France (AFP): The European Union’s climate monitor said Friday that ocean temperatures are edging toward record highs as conditions shift toward a potentially powerful El Ni\u00f1o weather pattern. Samantha Burgess from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) said sea surface temperatures in recent days were just shy of the all-time highs of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":429567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3,24,5,2],"tags":[],"reporter":[],"class_list":["post-429563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-en-cover","category-english","category-international","category-top-stories","category-top-stories-main"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429563"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429568,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429563\/revisions\/429568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429563"},{"taxonomy":"reporter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radionepalonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reporter?post=429563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}