El Nino's return in 2023 could fuel record temperatures
STORY: This year could be the hottest on record, fueled by climate change and the expected return of the El Nino weather phenomenon, scientists said on Thursday (April 20).
After three years of the generally cooler La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, the world will experience a return to El Nino, its warmer counterpart, later this year, according to climate models.
During El Nino, winds blowing west along the equator slow down and warm water is pushed east, creating warmer surface ocean temperatures.
Europe experienced its hottest summer on record in 2022, Samantha Burgess of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service said.
"So, the, the anticipation is, if we do transition into a El Nino, the expectation is that 2023 may, is more likely to be warmer than not than 2022."
Copernicus published a report on Thursday (April 20) assessing last year's climate-change fueled extreme weather.
Including disastrous flooding in Pakistan and Antarctic sea ice hitting record low levels.
Climate models suggest a return to El Nino conditions in the late boreal summer, and the possibility of a strong El Nino developing towards the end of the year, Copernicus said.
The last eight years were the hottest on record - reflecting the longer-term warming driven by greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite most of the world's major emitters pledging to slash their net emissions to zero, global CO2 emissions last year continued to rise.
