Australia faces heightened risks of drought, bushfires, extreme heat, and reduced snow cover as an El Nino event approaches, with climate change worsening its effects. Experts warn that current La Nina years are already hotter than past El Nino years, underscoring the urgency of the situation.
The world is approaching a likely El Nino weather event, which in Australia is projected to cause poor snow cover during the peak skiing season, heightened summer bushfire risks, drought conditions, extreme heat, and delayed agricultural harvests.
The Climate Council has emphasized that climate change, driven by rising carbon pollution, is intensifying both El Nino and La Nina events. Their data reveal that even the "cold years" associated with La Nina in recent times are hotter than the "hot years" of El Nino in the previous century.
Australian authorities are preparing to officially declare an El Nino pattern this summer, which typically brings drier and hotter weather to the continent, contrasting with the wetter conditions of La Nina. The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a global climate cycle dictated by Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures, alternating between neutral, El Nino, and La Nina phases.
According to Dr. Andrew Watkins, an adjunct professor at Monash University's School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Australian meteorologists consider an El Nino event when central and eastern tropical Pacific temperatures are at least 0.8 degrees Celsius above normal. The United States uses a lower threshold of 0.5 degrees.
"We're currently in neutral, but we're on the cusp," Watkins stated, adding that an El Nino increases the likelihood of drought, extreme heat, fire weather, reduced snowfall, marine heatwaves, and coral bleaching. Crucially, these risks are compounded by the existing 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming caused by climate change, meaning that when El Nino adds extra heat, the starting point is already significantly warmer than in the past.
Signals of an impending El Nino were detected in autumn through Kelvin waves-warm anomalies appearing as a red plume along the equatorial Pacific-which often precede the event. El Nino events typically trigger floods in the Americas and droughts, heat, and fires in Australia and Asia, while also reducing critical crop yields worldwide.
The World Meteorological Organization is expected to issue a formal consensus on El Nino within days, and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has indicated that El Nino is likely to develop by July, possibly affecting coastal communities. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology noted that all predictive models point to an El Nino forming this winter, though it cautions that each event is unique.
Models forecast lower winter rainfall across much of Victoria, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, southern and central Queensland, Western Australia, and parts of Tasmania. The Climate Council outlined potential consequences: emerging drought and frost damage in southern cropping regions by September, intensifying extreme heat and late harvests in October, and from January onward, marine heatwaves, depleted water storage, and widespread coral bleaching
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