Will La Niña manage to reduce the high temperatures that the world endures? This is what NASA says

May 2024 was another hot month in the world with records of temperature which confirms the trend of recent years in various countries; For example, Mexico reported records of up to 45°C and in Asia, from India to the Philippines, a heat wave devastated the region causing deaths from heart attacks, school closures and desperate invocations of rains.

Average global temperatures over the past 12 months hit record highs for each respective month, which is an unprecedented streak, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

In this regard, the administrator of the POTBill Nelson stated that “It is clear that we are facing a climate crisis. Communities in different places in the United States – such as Arizona, California, Nevada – and the world are feeling extreme heat up close in unprecedented numbers.”

“NASA and the Biden-Harris Administration recognize the urgency of protecting our home planet. “We are providing critical climate data to improve lives and livelihoods, and for the benefit of all humanity,” he added.

The agency agreed with other scientific studies that indicate that the series of record temperatures corresponds to a trend towards heating long-term driven by human activity, mainly by greenhouse gas emissions.

“This trend has become evident over the past four decades, and the past 10 consecutive years have been the 10 warmest since record-keeping began in the late 19th century. Before this streak of 12 consecutive months of record temperatures, the second longest streak lasted seven months, between 2015 and 2016,” he stressed.

El Niño weakens: is La Niña coming?

The phenomena like The boy and La Niña, which alternately warm and cool the tropical Pacific Ocean, may contribute a small amount of variability in global temperatures from year to year. The strong El Niño event that began in April 2023 helped fuel the extreme heat of last year’s summer and fall.

Now, starting in May 2024, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center projected a 49% chance of La Niña developing between June and August, and a 69% chance of it developing between July and September.

In Peru, the latest report from the Multisectoral Commission in charge of the National Study of the El Niño Phenomenon (Enfen) modified the status of the alert system to “Coastal La Niña Monitoring”, noting that since May there has been an anomalous cooling on the northern and central coast of Peru (Niño 1+2 region).

According to Enfen, these conditions would persist until September, making the development of a weak coastal La Niña event more likely, which would lead to air temperatures below normal on the Peruvian coast.

Will it help cool the world temperature?

“By cooling a large swath of the tropical Pacific, a La Niña event could partially contain this year’s global average temperatures,” the report refers.

With the presence of La Niña it will be difficult to know if 2024 will set another world heat record. Factors such as volcanic eruptions and aerosol emissions that block the Sun can affect our climate in a given year. The missions of the POT They are actively studying these influences, said Gavin Schmidt, director of the GISS.

“There are unresolved issues that may affect our predictions in the coming years and decades, and we are in evidence-gathering mode,” Schmidt said. “This year could well end up setting another global temperature record. Right now, it’s on track to get closer to 2023.”

Ocean temperatures and hurricanes

Scientists are looking at how ocean temperatures may influence this year’s hurricane season. The temperatures remained high as the 2024 hurricane and typhoon seasons began.

Across the Northern Hemisphere, ocean temperatures for the period from January to April were 1.18 degrees Celsius (2.12 degrees Fahrenheit) above average, according to NOAA.

Despite the weakening of El Niño, temperatures at the sea surface and in deeper waters are still above average in many places, said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). NASA in Southern California.

Willis cited rising carbon dioxide emissions as the main driver of the heating of the ocean. Up to 90% of excess atmospheric heat in recent decades has been absorbed by the ocean, and much of that heat has been stored near the water surface.

“The ocean is the flywheel of our climate,” Willis said. “Since the ocean covers more than two-thirds of the Earth, whatever the sea surface temperatures are, the rest of the planet will be affected.”

La Niña years can also contribute to more active hurricane seasons in the Atlantic. This is because La Niña conditions weaken westerly winds in the atmosphere near the Americas, above the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic Ocean.

Wind shear (abrupt changes in wind speed and direction) can stop hurricanes before they develop. La Niña effectively suppresses this brake, allowing tropical storms to form and intensify unhindered.