El Niño could return this month (and be strong enough to cause irreparable damage to the Earth)

According to a new study, if the next El Niño reaches sufficient power and severity, it could leave a lasting mark on temperature, precipitation and ocean circulation patterns.

A team of scientists warns that this year’s storm could be strong enough to cause irreversible changes on Earth.

The signal observed by experts comes from the Pacific Oceanwhere the main climate models point to a warming of the sea surface.

According to the World Meteorological Organizationalmost all scenarios analyzed include the arrival of El Niño this monthwith anomalies that could reach 1,5ºC in early summer.

According to , this threshold would already be enough to talk about a strong episode, but some calculations raise the risk of a possible super El Niño. This type of phenomenon not only changes the weather for a few months, but can push several natural systems into a different, longer-lasting state.

In a new one, published in December in Nature Communicationsresearchers warn that if this climate phenomenon reaches sufficient power and severity, it could leave a lasting mark on weather patterns. temperature, precipitation and ocean circulation.

Projections indicate that some models from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s climate forecasting system (NOAA) point to anomalies of up to 3,4ºC when El Niño reaches its most intense phase. Even taking into account current global warming, the deviation could be around 2,7 ºC.

If the anomaly persists for three months, the episode could surpass the El Niño of 1982/1983one of the most intense ever recorded. At the time, the waters of the Pacific remained 2.5 ºC above average, and now the phenomenon would occur on an already hotter planet.

“These changes are important because they can transform a brief climate disturbance into a more prolonged risk,” said the study’s lead author, Jong-Seong Kug.

Major El Niño episodes have been associated with marine heat waves, droughts, extreme heat episodes and changes in rainfall distribution, especially in the central Pacific, the southeast Indian Ocean, the southwest Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico.

Finally, although it is unclear whether these events will become more frequent due to climate change, scientists hope that their impacts intensify as the Earth warms.