Niño

The Spanish anthem has no lyrics, so we have sung another one that has nothing to do with football: Nino Bravo’s

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The Spanish anthem or Marcha Real is a rarity: it does not have official lyrics (although there are those who have tried to compose it, from José María Pemán to Sabina or Marta Sánchez), which gives it a solemn aura, but prevents the participation of the masses in festive environments. Like when you win a Soccer World Cup, except that people become helpless “lo lo lo lo.” However, the fans I needed a letter for chant and celebrate the champions and found it within a melodic 1972 song milestone that doesn’t mention football once. When did it start? ‘A kiss and a flower’ by Nino Bravo already played in stadiums in the United States and Mexico throughout the tournament, and ended chanted in unison by players and fans after the whistle that put an end to the same. At the airport, hours later, the public address system made it sound while relatives from both teams shared a terminal on the way home. The verse that circulated the most on networks was the one that opens the song: “When parting, a kiss and a flower, an ‘I love you’, a caress and goodbye.” The original. It was composed by José Luis Armenteros and Pablo Herrero in 1972, with arrangements by Maryní Callejo, and it was number one on Los 40 Principales that same year, four weeks in a row. Its interpreter, Luis Manuel Ferri Llopis, better known as Nino Bravo, died in a traffic accident in 1973, when he was only 28 years old. This video clip that was filmed in the Balearic Islands For the Ministry of Information and Tourism it is the only color material that is preserved from him. Before this song, Nino Bravo had already triumphed outside of Spain: between 1969 and 1970 he recorded some sixty songs and his voice especially resonated in Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Chile and Colombia, markets where he shared the bill with Raphael without the divo overshadowing him in the slightest. That his repertoire (especially this one and ‘Libre’) is still alive half a century later in the stands and the streets is proof of how it has deeply permeated Spanish popular culture. What the lyrics are really talking about. The more extended reading He links it to the economic emigration of Franco’s regime: the years in which thousands of young people left “with the cardboard suitcase” for Germany, Switzerland or France in search of a salary that they could not find here (“I will leave my land for you, I will leave my fields and I will go, far from here”). That is why the song serves today, far from Spain, as an anthem of another exodus: in Cuba it is still associated with those who have had to leave the island in recent decades. The long relationship with football. In fact, Nino Bravo’s melody has been around for decades sneaking into Latin American standsalthough with the lyrics completely replaced. The fans of Barcelona SC, in Ecuador, adapted it to sing about his yellow uniform; Colombian Deportivo Cali did something similarand there is also a version for Independiente Medellín. In those cases the lyrics vary to encourage the team and the fans and launch the corresponding jabs at the rival. The Spanish case is special: there is no new or modified letter. The original is sung, which promises a return as the only very slight and common link with the circumstances of the competition. And be careful, the original letter does not distinguish flags. In fact, a curious phenomenon has occurred with it: despite its international significance, it has been chanted en bloc among Spanish players and fans because it has been judged in an intuitive and unspoken way that it is a genuinely Spanish anthem and that it represents us. Like the sun every morning. In Xataka | Argentina is clear that Argentina had to give away Argentina’s fourth World Cup. And no one in Argentina is very clear why.

Latin America has to take El Niño seriously and it has to do it now

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Seven months ago, El Niño was a distant, diffuse threat: it did not exist. It existed as a forecast, as a possibility, as a reminder of a phenomenon that has been coming and going for 10,000 years. But, of course, that was December 2025. Now El Niño is not only here. According to NOAA, 81% is one of the largest since 1950. If the world has a problem, Latin America has it raised to the nth degree. But you’re getting ready, right? For example, and this is a great example, the Panama Canal Authority began to ‘save water’ in the Gatún Reservoir weeks ago. It’s not an occurrence. Historically, El Niño drastically reduces rainfall in the Panama area and this usually causes a severe deficit of fresh water in the swamps that feed the lock system of the interoceanic waterway. Without that water, the canal becomes inoperative. In other words, that water is crucial And that’s why I say that the Canal is a good example. Because it is not that Latin America is not preparing: it is that the calculations are not working out. But… let’s start at the beginning. On July 9, NOAA upped the ante and announced that its models gave a 81% of possibilities that El Niño will be “very strong” already between October and December. That would place it among the largest since 1950. In addition, he believes that there is a 97% chance that it will last until the spring of 2027. But surely none of these are the most worrying sign. Above all, if we look at the coast of Peru and Ecuador. The anomaly off this coast is 2.2 degrees above that of the western Pacific. This is reminiscent of 1982-83 and 1997-98 (the worst recent ENSOs) and not 2015-16. And, as it could not be otherwise, the authorities know it. Nobody is sitting idly by. Peru has in alert Since March, the Red Cross had been preparing since AprilEcuador presented his plan on July 1st. However, it is not enough. The director general of IICA, Muhammad Ibrahim, published these days a grandstand calling for a “proactive regional strategy” in the face of an episode that is increasingly clear will be historic. And it does so because the level of preparation seems clearly insufficient. And, be careful, it is not a reproach. It is more of a symptom. Even when we prepare we are late: the consequences (added to a fertilizer crisis that does not end) are going to be very serious. Above all, because not even the strongest events produce the typical impact everywhere: they only indicate probabilities and we do not have a system capable of preparing for all scenarios. But we should have it. Image | In Xataka | The key El Niño zone is now recording the highest temperature ever measured: another worrying fact that adds to a historic ENSO

The El Niño numbers are so strong that they are beginning to make half the world nervous. We have to be able to differentiate risk from hysteria

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“More than 1.80 degrees, 3.46 standard deviations“These two figures simply summarize the enormous El Niño problem that is upon us. And yet, they say much more than they seem. Because, while social networks are filled with phrases like «2026 will be the year when we look back and say: “there, that was when the relatively stable climate system that we have had for 10,000 years really broke down”», are just the data that two of the largest agencies in the world have just retired. Let’s start with what we are clear about. The El Niño of 2026 is real and is coming (very) strong. After an almost testimonial Niña and as we have been counting these months, the Pacific has stepped on the accelerator and on June 11 it made an appearance. The CPC The NOAA estimates that the event is “very strong” between November and January at 63%, the highest since 1950. So, anyway, the figures cannot surprise anyone either. The problem is that they are inflated. That +1.80 with which the text began is the traditional Niño 3.4 index, the absolute. In short: it is the index that measures how far the Central Pacific is from its historical average. And it’s the index we’ve been using all these years. The problem is that there was one small detail that clouded the data and that, sooner or later, we had to address: climate change. In an ocean that warms with each passing day, both La Niña and El Niño start from different places than in previous decades. We were inflating Los Niño and deflating Las Niñas without meaning to. For this reason, in 2026, NOAA adopted the RONI, a relative index that discounted the effect of climate change. And, in this sense, the data circulating on the internet is true and worrying, yes; but incomplete. And does the photo change much from the ONI to the RONI? Since we don’t have updated data, let’s go to April: according to NOAAthe ONI marked +0.23 °C, while the RONI was at −0.24 °C. That is to say, the difference is considerable, but the situation is much less critical. So… the system isn’t broken? The reaction to the runaway ONI hits the mark, but misses the mark. Evidently, El Niño has not gone crazy: it is a mechanism with thousands of years behind it that works on a relatively new world. We could see an obvious example this June: the warmest observed in the global ocean, one in which marine heat waves covered 82% of its surface. And now…. what? In the short term, an increasingly stronger El Niño. It is true that in Spain we are relatively safe from what happens in the Pacific; but, sooner or later, we are going to notice it. As half the world is already noticing. Image | BenBaso In Xataka | We are already seeing the first most destructive effect of El Niño in living memory: rising sea levels

“It is partly favored by the beginning of a new El Niño phenomenon”

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The oceans continue to increase in temperature and set records. We have the latest data from June 21, when unprecedented temperatures were reached, and it is not any type of sensor or satellite calibration error. And when two of the most advanced and precise climate measurement systems on the planet issue exactly the same warning, science leaves little room for doubt: Earth’s oceans are warmer than ever for this time of year. Double confirmation. What is truly relevant about this milestone is not the number on the thermometer, but the solidity of this data. On the one hand, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which It is the European referenceaimed at 20.86 ºC on June 21. On the other hand, Copernicus Marine Service frame on this same day 21 ºC. Its importance. In climatology, it is crucial that two metrics with different methodological approaches converge on the same result. This double confirmation drastically reduces the probability that the record depends on a single measurement method or an instrumental failure. The Child. This ocean thermal anomaly does not occur in a vacuum, but already at the end of May and beginning of June, the World Meteorological Organization warned that the probability of El Niño developing was unusually high, urging governments to prepare their impact mitigation plans. The suspicions were confirmed on June 11, 2026 when the Climate Prediction Center of the US NOAA issued its ENSO Diagnostic Discussiondeclaring officially that El Niño conditions were already present in the equatorial Pacific and that the phenomenon had developed strongly during the previous month. An important nuance. As experts point out, the fact that record temperatures coincide with the onset of El Niño does not imply complete causality. It must be taken into account that El Niño is a natural phenomenon that warms the tropical Pacific, but by itself it does not explain why the North Atlantic or the southern seas are burning. What we are experiencing is a dangerous temporal coincidence, as El Niño is overlapping a relentless background global warming trend, driven by human-made emissions. Anthropogenic warming has raised the “base temperature” of the planet and, if you add to that artificially high base the natural peak caused by El Niño, the result is the breakdown of global thermometers that we are seeing this month. Its effects. The sea acts as the Earth’s great thermostat, absorbing approximately 90% of the excess heat from the climate system. But this buffering capacity has limits and, above all, severe consequences. For example, a warmer sea evaporates more water and this means more atmospheric “fuel” to trigger extreme storms and more intense hurricanes. The experts. If we turn to the voices of third-party researchers who have interpreted these results, Sergio Moreno, technician at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, in statements to SMC, states the following: Regarding the implications of these observations, as the authors already mention, the trend of increasing sea surface temperature, which has been experienced for years, seems to be accelerating, partly favored by the beginning of a new episode of the El Niño phenomenon. Although there is always a certain degree of uncertainty in any prediction, everything seems to indicate that temperature records will continue to be broken in the coming months and years, accompanied by more intense and less predictable weather phenomena. In Xataka | Global warming has stepped on the accelerator at an unprecedented rate and we are getting closer to the point of no return

The super Niño of 1877 wiped out 4% of the world’s population. The one that is already beginning to form promises to be worse, but what does that mean in 2027?

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In the last week, El Niño has become suddenly real. Media like Washington Post, BBC or countless media in Spanish have begun to compare what is coming to us with El superNiño of 1877, the event that “wiped out 4% of the world’s population.” And, stated this way, it is no wonder; The story is simple: “a Child Godzilla is coming and no one knows if we are ready.” That is why it is important to know what exactly we are talking about and if, in short, “we are all going to die.” How serious is the matter? As we said a few days ago, between March and May the reliability of ENSO forecasts is usually worse than normal (because the equatorial Pacific anomalies go through their transition phase). That makes everyone go with “lead feet”; but the data is worrying. Ben Noll of the Washington Post broadcast on May 8 that the North American Multi-Model Ensemble projected “the strongest El Niño on record” between October 2026 and January 2027, with a peak of +3.1 °C in November. They are big words. Above all, because the ECMWF is along the same lines. In the words of Diego Restrepo, “El Niño is rapidly intensifying, and now 8 out of 10 models point to a super event and four project the strongest one on record.” And this looks like 1877? That is Noll’s thesis and it has been repeated a lot in recent days. However, the comparison is misleading. First, because, although the models are pointing to a historical ENSO, they are still models. That is, we still have no idea what is going to happen. And, to be strict, until the models recover their full potential in June, we will not know well. Second because, as argued by Kimberley Reid, from the University of Melbournethe intensity measured in the central Pacific does not translate linearly into impacts. Taking into account everything that has changed in this century and a half at a climate level, the impacts may be completely different. And thirdly because El Niño of 1877 was not the cause of that catastrophe. Yes, it is true that he set the conditions for it to occur but, as noted Mike Davis in “Late Victorian Holocausts”what killed throughout that quarter of a century were colonial policies. And what happened in 1877? A strange combination between a superNiño, the Indian Dipole and a tremendously warm North Atlantic between the years 1876–78 caused a global drought. The problem is that, in a world governed by imperialism, grain exports did not stop and, as local resilience mechanisms had been dismantled, a famine occurred that killed some 50 million people. But the consensus is clear: no matter how intense El Niño was, it caused the problem of its management. And that, although it may not seem like it, is good news. A few years ago the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published a report with a clear warning: “climate-related disasters” have increased since the 1970s. Specifically, they have multiplied by five over the last five decades. According to their calculations, in the 1980s, 1,400 incidents were recorded – their tables include extreme weather, climate and water phenomena – and in the 1990s, just over 2,200. In the first decade of the 21st century, 3,500 were reached and during the last decade, which spans from 2010 to 2019, it was close to 3,200. Curiously, this increase in the number of disasters has coincided with a decrease in the number of victims. The WMO data is clearalso: from more than 50,000 deaths in the 1970s (incidents basically related to climate and water are taken into account) it went to less than 20,000 in 2010. From an average of 170 a day in the 70s and 80s, it dropped in the 90s to less than a hundred a day and to 40 at the beginning of the 21st century. What will happen? As Restrepo also points out“despite having more information and knowledge, today we have warmer oceans, much more vulnerable ecosystems and collapsing biodiversity. This could generate impacts on health and risks for food, water and energy security.” However, we are more prepared and more importantly we have time to prepare. The ball is in our court. Image | Ben Noll In Xataka | There are more and more extreme weather events. In return, they are leaving fewer victims than ever

models point to worst El Niño in 140 years and one of the key reports is published on Thursday

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All the meteorological agencies in the world are looking at the same building on the east coast of the United States. On Thursday, May 14, before markets open, in College Park, Maryland, a room full of oceanographers and meteorologists will discuss a four-page pdf. In that pdf it will be written the future of the planet. It sounds epic, but it’s more prosaic than it seems. It will not be written clearly, sharply, or with absolute certainty: but it will be. What’s in that PDF? NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) publishes the second Thursday of each month your ENSO Diagnostic Discussion. It is the most important report from the global El Niño monitoring systems and, from what the models are saying, the probability of a “very strong” El Niño is going to exceed 25% (and growing). But if it’s monthly… why is this specific report important? Because the index the agency uses to monitor and predict ENSO has changed. Until this year, NOAA I used ONI: an index to measure the sea surface temperature anomaly, but which does not discount the average anomaly produced by climate change. What is expected is that the predictions under the new index (I’ll call it RONI) is significantly less than under normal conditions. If the magnitudes shoot up despite the correction, things will look worse. This report is important because it is the first that will capture the “acceleration” of El Niño at full capacity. What would this entail? Each new NOAA report translates into a cascade of decisions in agricultural, energy, fishing and fire policies. He last major El Niño (2023-24) coincided with 2023 would be the second warmest year on record and 2024 the warmest ever: a strong 2026-27 El Niño could push 2027 to another global record and the impacts are not well measured. It is true that between March and May the reliability of ENSO forecasts drops sharply (because the equatorial Pacific anomalies go through their transition phase); but, in the absence of the June report, this is the best clue we have. What can we expect? We already know that there is a 61% chance that El Niño will be with us between May and July 2026. A 25% chance that it is “very strong.” The important thing to keep in mind is what that means. 61% measures the probability that the equatorial Pacific crosses the threshold of what we understand as El Niño. But, unfortunately, it does not measure how much it will rain in Cádiz, nor what will happen to the crops in Misiones, nor how many hurricanes the Yucatán will see. It is worth remembering that, during the warm phase (that is, during El Niño), the absence of strong trade winds that cool the surface of the equatorial Pacific causes the temperature of that area of ​​the ocean to skyrocket. It is this, through different atmospheric teleconnectionswhich disrupts all the weather systems in the world. What we are not clear about is exactly how. The effects are varied and change depending on the region (“drier conditions than normal in certain parts of the world; while in others it causes more precipitation. Some countries have to deal with major droughts and others with torrential rains”, says AEMET); but when we talk about temperatures there is no doubt: El Niño is synonymous with heat. Everything else remains to be written. Image | Xataka In Xataka | “It is so extreme that it is difficult to believe”: El Niño forecasts depict an event of unprecedented intensity.

There are meteorologists who are already comparing El Niño of 2027 with that of 1877, a catastrophic event that wiped out 4% of the population

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We have been worried about El Niño for weeks and rightly so. One by one, the main weather forecasters have been warning us that curves are coming. It is true that on April 24, 2026, the World Meteorological Organization refused to call it “super”, but its refusal is purely terminological: what is clear is that everything indicates that “it could be strong or very strong.” Even Ryan Maue, one of the most controversial meteorologists of the moment (for his criticism of “climate alarmism”), has become nervous and has linked what is coming directly to the El Niño of 1877-78. That event wiped out 4% of the planet’s population. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and remember what El Niño is. By ‘El Niño’ we refer to a cyclical (although very irregular) climate phenomenon that has great effects on the global climate. Huge, in fact. If we exclude the stations, it is the most important source of annual climate variability from all over the planet. During the warm phase (that is, during El Niño), the absence of strong trade winds that cool the surface of the equatorial Pacific causes the temperature of that area of ​​the ocean to skyrocket. It is this, through different atmospheric teleconnectionswhich disrupts all the weather systems in the world. The effects are varied and change depending on the region (“drier conditions than normal in certain parts of the world; while in others it causes more precipitation. Some countries have to deal with major droughts and others with torrential rains”, says AEMET); But when we talk about temperatures there is no doubt: El Niño is synonymous with heat and, in many places in the world, hunger. That’s what happened in 1877. According to modern reconstructionsEl Niño of 1877-78 was the most intense since 1850: sea surface temperatures remained high for 16 months and, as if that were not enough, that coincided with two warm phenomena (in the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic). That triggered a drought of unusual magnitude. However, the 4% figure is problematic. Not because it’s not realbut because (firstly) it corresponds to a longer period that begins in 1877, but lasts until 1902. And, secondly, because the demographic catastrophe was not a direct effect of the climate, but the result of colonial policies: in many areas of the world they were forced to export grain to the metropolises despite famines. In this sense, transferring the mortality figures from that year to today (even if El Niño reached a similar intensity) is not serious. Although it can be expensive. We must not forget that the super El Niño of 97-98, one of the strongest ENSOs in recent years, caused numerous consequences that lasted for years: the estimates say which caused damage to global economic growth of around 5.7 trillion dollars. That is, we are not talking about an episode from 100 years ago, but something that happened 30 years ago and that draws the framework in which state policies have to work. Above all, because although Spain is not in the first row, the consequences can be global. We are no longer talking about diffuse teleconnections (more rain in some areas), we are talking about enormous economic pressure in international markets that have been having a hard time for years. Nobody is very clear what is going to happen, but we do know that we have to prepare for it. Image | Xataka In Xataka | “It is so extreme that it is difficult to believe”: El Niño forecasts depict an event of unprecedented intensity.

projections have just put on the table the worst El Niño in 140 years

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It often feels like we are erasing the meaning of the word ‘historical’ by using it so much. And yet, here I am: about to say that seasonal prediction models show an “unprecedented” convergence in the same direction: an extremely strong El Niño before the end of 2026. If what the models say is confirmed, we could be facing the most powerful El Niño in at least 140 years. So yes, ‘historic’ is the appropriate word. But, first of all, let’s review what ENSO is. They are the acronym in English of El Niño-Southern Oscillation and they refer to a cyclical (although very irregular) climate phenomenon that has great effects on the global climate. Huge, in fact. If we exclude the stations, it is the most important source of annual climate variability from all over the planet. During the warm phase (that is, during El Niño), the absence of strong trade winds that cool the surface of the equatorial Pacific causes the temperature of that area of ​​the ocean to skyrocket. It is this, through different atmospheric teleconnectionswhich disrupts all the weather systems in the world. The effects are varied and change depending on the region (“drier conditions than normal in certain parts of the world; while in others it causes more precipitation. Some countries have to deal with major droughts and others with torrential rains”, says AEMET); but when we talk about temperatures there is no doubt: El Niño is synonymous with heat. Although, of course, that is in a normal ENSO. If we talk about the strongest ENSO event in a century and a half, everything skyrockets. The most likely conclusions tell us about a wild redistribution of heat globally, a more than likely temperature record for 2027 and a string of profound alterations in rainfall and hurricane patterns. And why do we think it will be like this? Fundamentally, because the convergence of the different models is a very strong indication. Not only is it that more than half of the probabilistic scenarios of the European model they project anomalies greater than +2.5 degrees in the equatorial Pacific, is that Zeke Hausfather (adding 433 members from 11 models) reaches the same conclusions. And what exactly is the news? Obviously, the news is not that El Niño is coming. We have already talked about that: The news is the strength (aggressiveness, even) with which it now appears in our projections. Or not even that. Because no one is very clear what an event of this type means in a climate context like the current one (it would arrive after three years above the 1.5 of the Paris Agreement). And that is a problem. “Problem”? It is also the most appropriate word. We must not forget that the super El Niño of 97-98, one of the strongest ENSOs in recent years, caused numerous consequences that lasted for years: the estimates say which caused damage to global economic growth of around 5.7 trillion dollars. If this event is greater than the one in ’97, the question is whether the improvements we have made since then are enough to contain the blow or not. The answer, I’m afraid, we will have in a few months. Image | Xataka In Xataka | “It is so extreme that it is difficult to believe”: El Niño forecasts depict an event of unprecedented intensity.

The question is not whether 2027 will be the warmest year on record, the question is by how much. And the answer lies in El Niño who is approaching us.

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Not one, not two; but three independent forecasts They converge on the same idea: 2027 is being given the face of a record. And in recent days, events have happened very quickly: The Child is at the doors and, from what we know so far, it may be a historic event. This means that next year has a very good chance of becoming the warmest year ever recorded, surpassing 2024 and exceeding the 1.5 degrees of the Paris Agreement. But let’s start with El Niño. ENSO (English acronym for El Niño-Southern Oscillation) is a cyclical, although irregular, climate phenomenon that has large effects on the global climate. Great, in fact. If we exclude the stations, it is the most important source of annual climate variability from all over the planet. During the warm phase (which will now affect us), the lack of trade winds that cool the surface of the equatorial Pacific causes the temperature to skyrocket. And so, through different atmospheric teleconnectionsdisrupts all of Earth’s weather systems. The effects in terms of precipitation change depending on the region (“drier than normal conditions in certain parts of the world, while in others it causes more precipitation. Some countries have to deal with major droughts and others with torrential rains”, says AEMET); but no one escapes from the temperature. What is happening with him? That between the forecasts for December 2025 and those for March 2026, everything has accelerated radically. Although La Niña is officially with us, the chances that we will end up with a strong or very strong EL Niño continue to grow. Above all, since researchers discovered this massive surface heating of the equatorial Pacific caused by Kelvin waves and which has already hopelessly eroded the cold pocket of water that we associate with La Niña. This is the most interesting because, as pointed out by Severe Weather Europe and Climate Impact Companythe parallels with other superChildren They are more than patent. What does all this mean? That, barring a miracle, temperatures are going to skyrocket until they exceed the red lines that we had set for ourselves. Each and every one of the last three years have surpassed 1.4 degrees over the pre-industrial period: 2026 will continue along the same lines, but 2027 has everything “in its favor” to settle above 1.5 degrees. That, translated into natural language, means ‘problems’. Issues? ENSO is a highly variable phenomenon and, in general terms, each phase is unpredictable in terms of intensity, duration, time of year and various interactions. However, the effects are sharp. On the one hand, El Niño causes flooding in California, Central America, northern Peru, Ecuador and large areas of northern and southeastern South America; torrential rains in the eastern-central Pacific islands and central Asia. On the other, is synonymous with droughts in southern Africa, the Sahel, Southeast Asia and, apparently, the Valley of Mexico. In Spain, in addition to the temperatures, it usually coincides with a small increase in rain. Could this rapid warming be indicative of something else? But beyond all this, there is something that worries researchers: that this sudden warming is a symptom of changes between the three phases of El Niño that are faster than they have been until now. Nothing is clear, obviously, but the mere possibility makes experts from half the world nervous. Meanwhile, Image | Climate Realanyzer In Xataka | We don’t know anything about El Niño at this time of year. That’s a meteorological mystery… and good news

El Niño is coming back in a big way

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Since mid-2025, we had no news on the front: the equatorial Pacific has been governed for months by a tremendously weak, decaffeinated and boring La Niña. But things end. And this La Niña is, in fact, ending very quickly. As I write, Kevin waves are transporting heat into the eastern Pacific and major seasonal models are signaling with unprecedented fixation that El Niño is just around the corner. What’s more, they point out that the next episode of ENSO is going to be between strong and very strong before we know it. First of all… what is El Niño in 127 words. What we know as El Niño-Southern Oscillation (or ENSO) is a cyclical (although somewhat irregular) climate phenomenon that has large effects on the global climate. During the warm phase (during El Niño itself), the lack of trade winds to cool the surface causes the temperature of the Pacific waters to skyrocket. And that, precisely that, disrupts all the Earth’s weather systems, causing the thermometers of the entire planet to skyrocket. As explained from AEMET“El Niño, through different atmospheric teleconnections, gives rise to drier than normal conditions in certain parts of the world; while in others it causes more precipitation. Some countries have to deal with significant droughts and others with torrential rains.” What happened now? Something quite curious, really. In just one week, we have gone from the most absolute tranquility (60-70% chance of neutral conditions) to 80% of a strong or very strong El Niño before summer ends. What has changed, as I said above, are the ocean signals: NOAA have found signs of significant subsurface warming, and that warming is the classic first sign that something is starting to change. Basically, since the beginning of the year there have been three episodes in which warm water from the western Pacific has been moving eastward. Changes in the wind pattern have also been detected. And why does it concern experts? Because these rapid changes are very similar to what happened in 1997. The super El Niño of 97-98 was one of the strongest ENSOs in recent years and caused numerous problems: the estimates say that he alone caused damage to global economic growth of around 5.7 trillion dollars. Obviously, many things They can go wrong between now and summerbut we would be wrong if we do not pay attention to the Pacific. We are at the doors of a global food crisisthe last thing we need is for El Niño to hit the Southern Hemisphere hard during the last months of the year. Image | NOAA In Xataka | Long periods of drought are going to become more and more normal. It’s time to get used to them

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