Extreme El Niño Events Predicted to Increase with Climate Change

Summary:

A new study indicates that extreme El Niño events could become much more common as global temperatures rise. The research, highlighting the potential consequences of climate change, suggests that if the Earth warms by 6.6°F (3.7°C), 90% of El Niños could be as severe as the record-breaking 1997-1998 event, which caused significant fatalities and economic damage. This shift could lead to increased rainfall and flooding in South America and severe droughts in regions like Indonesia and Australia. The study used an advanced climate model that predicts a rise from 8-9 extreme El Niños per century to 26, under higher warming scenarios. These findings imply that El Niño could be a climate tipping point, exhibiting drastically different behavior in warmer climates and potentially taking over a century to revert to current patterns. The results, published in Geophysical Research Letters, need further validation from other climate models.