On June 2, Celeste Saulo, the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, took the floor in front of media around the world and confirmed what we all feared: it is not only that, in a few weeks, the probability that The Child be strong or it has been triggered very strongly, it is that it is going much faster than normal.
There is an 80% chance that we will enter a warm phase before summer.
We have been saying the same refrain for decades (“it seems that El Niño is coming, we have to prepare”); Well, this time it seems that we won’t have time.
What does all this mean? Although the WMO still does not use the term “SuperChild” (because it is not part of their official terminology), but the data speaks for itself: Tropical Pacific ocean readings “6 degrees above average.”
It is true that these readings refer to the subsurface anomaly of the Kelvin wavebut the 0.9 of the Niño 3.4 index are not normal either (taking into account that we have been in a neutral phase for a very short time).
But we had already read this, what has changed? What are we leaving behind? the main problem for prediction models: spring. June is the key moment because the models we have suddenly gain reliability and the image they give us is much more precise.
That is, until now we were speculating. We had really surprising and worrying graphs, but we were aware that all this could end up in many ways when spring passed. The news is that this “landing” is being much more abrupt than we thought.
If at the end of last year someone had told us that we would have a warm phase in summer, we would not have believed them. If they had also told us that it was this size we wouldn’t have even listened to it. To be clear: in just a few weeks, the picture has changed massively.
What can we expect? Luckily, we have a clear precedent: The 2023-24 El Niño was the fifth strongest on record and generated an estimated $103.3 billion in damage. It was also a key factor in 2024 being the warmest year in the series.
This gives us the keys to understand what impact we can expect: as Saul said“El Niño’s impact will travel far beyond the Pacific Ocean, affecting agriculture, energy, trade, water resources, supply chains and livelihoods of entire regions.”
And in Spain too? THE same day that Saluo set off all the alarms, AEMET He came forward explaining that, indeed, “it is very likely that El Niño will manifest itself in these coming months” and the data confirm that it could reach “moderate or strong intensity after summer.”
The good news is that “there is no clear and direct correlation between the occurrence of El Niño and its effects in” Spain. It is true that some studies point to a somewhat rainier end of autumn/beginning of winter, but the agency itself insists that “this is not always the case” and that there is no systematic correspondence.
In summer, according to the agencyEl Niño would have “hardly any influence” in Spain.
Tranquility, then. That is the message from AEMETalthough the truth is that this tranquility only affects the direct impacts. In a world as interconnected as ours, we will not be able to escape the indirect consequences of the largest El Niño ever recorded. So what the Agency tells us is not that we should not prepare, but that we should focus on what is truly relevant to us.
The question is whether there is anyone out there listening.
Image | BemBaso
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