New Delhi: As the world, including India, stares at extreme weather and climate events like agonizing heat waves, deadly cyclone and drought risks owing to monsoon deficit, the ocean-warming phenomenon El Nino is officially here and could last until 2024, scientists have warned.
According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), El Nino could lead to new records for temperatures, particularly in areas that already experience above-average temperatures during El Nino.
_______________________________________________________________________
Read Also : Carbon Footprint – Facts and Effects
________________________________________________________________________
El Nino events usually occur every two to seven years and are characterized by warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures around the equator in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, reports Space.com.
The last El Nino event occurred between February and August 2019 but its impacts were relatively weak. “Depending on its strength, El Nino can cause a range of impacts, such as increasing the risk of heavy rainfall and droughts in certain locations around the world,” Michelle L’Heureux, a physical scientist at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, said in a statement recently.
“El Nino could lead to new records for temperatures, particularly in areas that already experience above-average temperatures during El Nino,” he added.
Last month, Kelvin waves, a potential precursor of El Nino conditions in the ocean, rolled across the equatorial Pacific toward the coast of South America.
________________________________________________________________________
Read Also: King Cobra belongs to 4 distinct species: IISc researchers
________________________________________________________________________
According to NASA, the data showed Kelvin waves — which are roughly 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 cm) high at the ocean surface and hundreds of miles wide — moving from west to east along the equator toward the west coast of South America. The advent of El Nino this year could push global temperatures into uncharted territory and contribute to global warming crossing the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold within the next five years, which would lead to catastrophic and irreversible climate breakdown, according to reports.
“We’ll be watching this El Nino like a hawk,” said Josh Willis, a project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“If it’s a big one, the globe will see record warming, but here in the southwest US we could be looking at another wet winter, right on the heels of the soaking we got last winter,” Willis said.
NOTE – This article was originally published in greaterkashmir and can be viewed here
