This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: El Niño is forecast to be the strongest since comparable records began four decades ago, the United Nations' climate agency warned Thursday, with the UN chief saying the world was in the "danger zone of extreme weather." The weather phenomenon is set to become "very strong" in the months ahead and is nearly certain to persist through February, the World Meteorological Organization said. "If this trajectory continues, it may be stronger than anything since our monitoring began," WMO chief Celeste Saulo told reporters in Geneva.
El Niño will peak toward the end of this year—though its ripple effects on the climate will continue well into 2027, the WMO said. El Niño warms surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, bringing worldwide changes in winds, pressure and rainfall. Heat in the oceans releases more slowly into the atmosphere, pushing up global temperatures the year after it develops.
The powerful 2023–24 El Niño contributed to 2024 being the warmest year on record, and "we should not be surprised if this record is broken," Saulo added. "El Niño is firmly established and will intensify into a very strong event in the coming months, with big impacts on rainfall and temperature patterns and associated risks of floods, drought and extreme heat," the WMO said. El Niño is a naturally occurring phenomenon and is not caused by climate change.
But scientists expect it will exacerbate the heat of a planet already warming from burning fossil fuels, while amping up weather extremes. "El Niño is being supersized before our eyes," said UN chief Antonio Guterres. "The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up.
Sea surface temperatures are rising, temperatures keep climbing, and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather." WMO chief Saulo urged disaster management authorities and climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture, fisheries, health, energy and water to prepare. "This exceptional El Niño ... has the potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies across the world," she said. "We are already seeing disruption and devastation from droughts and floods, and we expect these impacts to increase as El Niño intensifies." El Niño typically takes place every two to seven years and lasts around nine to 12 months.
Conditions oscillate between El Niño and its opposite, La Niña, with neutral conditions in between. El Niño can reshape weather and climate patterns thousands of kilometers away from the tropical Pacific. Wilfran Moufouma-Okia, the WMO's climate prediction chief, said some places would be affected before the peak, some during it and some after it later this year—though the strength of the peak is not an indicator of the severity of the impact.
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