El Niño could glimpse a bleak future

The climate scientists recently warned that the likely return of the El Niño weather pattern in the Pacific at the end of this year could cause a temporary rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius above their pre-industrial average by 2024. That margin represents a benchmark of warming that the entire planet has set as a barely tolerable maximum many decades into the future, not years to come.

The repercussions could be grim. The strong 2015-16 El Niño event produced the highest global average temperature ever recorded in 2016, along with a terrible drought in Ethiopia, a powerful cyclone in Fiji, record rainfall and snowfall in parts of the United States, and the worst Coral reef mortality in history. For whatever reason, it didn’t cause flooding in California; but El Niño events tend to strengthen atmospheric rivers of the kind that have been flooding that state for the past few weeks.

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And the planet is warmer now than when El Niño began, with average temperatures sometimes brushing 1.2C above pre-industrial levels. And this despite the almost three years of cooling caused by La Niña. These events take months to influence the climate, but at some point, after the return of El Niño, a new temperature record is likely to be set, moving uncomfortably close to the 1.5°C threshold.

Some scientists warn that it is already too late to limit global warming to 1.5ºC. Exceeding that target, even briefly, well before, say, 2050, could lead to widespread acceptance that the planet is doomed to much higher temperatures in the long term.

That hopelessness could be dangerous. It would also be a mistake. According to the climatologist michael mann, one or two years of high temperatures are not a long-term trend. It may be politically difficult to take the necessary steps to prevent 1.5°C from becoming the long-term trend, but it is still technically possible.

We must do everything we can, for as long as we can, to avoid sustained warming of 1.5°C or more. A brief rebound in 2024, miserable as it is, would be a slight preview of what awaits the planet if those temperatures become normal. The regional impacts of El Niño are entirely different from those that will prevail due to long-term global warming.

The devastation of decades of melting ice, rising sea levels, ecosystem collapse, and other effects of climate change will be more harrowing magnitudes.

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Any rebound in El Niño-induced warming should be seen as an opportunity to remind the world of the need to mitigate climate change much faster than we have been doing. A short-term emergency can help focus minds and dollars on reducing carbon emissions, transitioning to green energy, and researching technologies to combat the long-term emergency.

And long before El Niño hits, we need to prepare for the extreme weather events it will bring. Governments around the world must step up to make water supplies more resilient, protect vulnerable people from heat waves and deadly storms, while going green and strengthening power grids, to name a few. chores.

We have maybe a year to prepare. Forecasting hasn’t exactly been humanity’s forte when it comes to weather, but it’s not too late to try.

By Mark Gongloff