The National Weather Service issued an El Niño watch Thursday as scientists observe early signs of the climate pattern known to boost global temperatures, predicting it is more likely than not to arrive in the coming months.
El Niño is known for sending warmth and precipitation across the southern United States, triggering drought in parts of Australia, Indonesia and southern Africa, and limiting development of Atlantic hurricanes.It also tends to accelerate long-term global warming trends. The warm Pacific waters tend to produce more cloud cover, which encourages more of the sun’s warmth to be trapped in the atmosphere.
The early signs of El Niño, in addition to warmer-than-expected global temperatures so far this year, have prompted some scientists to nudge upward their predictions of where 2023 could rank among Earth’s hottest years on record. In aposted Wednesday, Robert Rohde, lead scientist for Berkeley Earth, calculated “a substantial” 38 percent chance 2023 could set a record for global warmth.
After a very warm March, and with El Niño looming, the temperature forecast for the rest of 2023 has shifted higher.
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