Bye bye, El Nino. Cooler hurricane-helping La Nina to replace the phenomenon that adds heat to Earth
Bye bye, El Nino. Cooler hurricane-helping La Nina to replace the phenomenon that adds heat to Earth
FILE - Bruce Hickey, 70, walks along the waterfront, now littered with debris including shrimp boats, in the mobile home park where he and his wife, Kathy, have a winter home on San Carlos Island, Fort Myers Beach, Fla., on Oct. 5, 2022, one week after the passage of Hurricane Ian. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. Forecasters expect La Nina to breeze in just in time for peak Atlantic hurricane season. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
FILE - A girl drinks water from a public fountain tap in Madrid, Spain, July 18, 2023. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. (AP Photo/Paul White, File)
FILE - Children walk in a flooded field in Mandera County, Kenya, Dec. 13, 2023. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)
FILE - A resident of a riverside community carries food and containers of drinking water after being distributed due to the ongoing drought in Careiro da Varzea, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 24, 2023. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. (AP Photo /Edmar Barros, File)
FILE - Homes are flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Aug. 30, 2021, in Jean Lafitte, La. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. Forecasters expect La Nina to breeze in just in time for peak Atlantic hurricane season. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
FILE - In this image provide by NOAA, a fish swims near coral showing signs of bleaching at Cheeca Rocks off the coast of Islamorada, Fla., on July 23, 2023. Coral reef experts say the combination of record ocean temperatures and the boost of heating from El Nino have led to a major global bleaching event threatening and at times killing vulnerable coral. (Andrew Ibarra/NOAA via AP, File)
FILE - Bruce Hickey, 70, walks along the waterfront, now littered with debris including shrimp boats, in the mobile home park where he and his wife, Kathy, have a winter home on San Carlos Island, Fort Myers Beach, Fla., on Oct. 5, 2022, one week after the passage of Hurricane Ian. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. Forecasters expect La Nina to breeze in just in time for peak Atlantic hurricane season. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
FILE - Bruce Hickey, 70, walks along the waterfront, now littered with debris including shrimp boats, in the mobile home park where he and his wife, Kathy, have a winter home on San Carlos Island, Fort Myers Beach, Fla., on Oct. 5, 2022, one week after the passage of Hurricane Ian. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. Forecasters expect La Nina to breeze in just in time for peak Atlantic hurricane season. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
FILE - A girl drinks water from a public fountain tap in Madrid, Spain, July 18, 2023. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. (AP Photo/Paul White, File)
FILE - A girl drinks water from a public fountain tap in Madrid, Spain, July 18, 2023. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. (AP Photo/Paul White, File)
FILE - Children walk in a flooded field in Mandera County, Kenya, Dec. 13, 2023. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)
FILE - Children walk in a flooded field in Mandera County, Kenya, Dec. 13, 2023. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)
FILE - A resident of a riverside community carries food and containers of drinking water after being distributed due to the ongoing drought in Careiro da Varzea, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 24, 2023. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. (AP Photo /Edmar Barros, File)
FILE - A resident of a riverside community carries food and containers of drinking water after being distributed due to the ongoing drought in Careiro da Varzea, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 24, 2023. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. (AP Photo /Edmar Barros, File)
FILE - Homes are flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Aug. 30, 2021, in Jean Lafitte, La. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. Forecasters expect La Nina to breeze in just in time for peak Atlantic hurricane season. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
FILE - Homes are flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Aug. 30, 2021, in Jean Lafitte, La. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday, June 13, 2024, pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. Forecasters expect La Nina to breeze in just in time for peak Atlantic hurricane season. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
FILE - In this image provide by NOAA, a fish swims near coral showing signs of bleaching at Cheeca Rocks off the coast of Islamorada, Fla., on July 23, 2023. Coral reef experts say the combination of record ocean temperatures and the boost of heating from El Nino have led to a major global bleaching event threatening and at times killing vulnerable coral. (Andrew Ibarra/NOAA via AP, File)
FILE - In this image provide by NOAA, a fish swims near coral showing signs of bleaching at Cheeca Rocks off the coast of Islamorada, Fla., on July 23, 2023. Coral reef experts say the combination of record ocean temperatures and the boost of heating from El Nino have led to a major global bleaching event threatening and at times killing vulnerable coral. (Andrew Ibarra/NOAA via AP, File)
The strong El Nino weather condition that added a bit of extra heat to already record warm global temperatures is gone. It’s cool flip side, La Nina, is likely to breeze in just in time for peak Atlantic hurricane season, federal meteorologists said.
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Thursday pronounced dead the El Nino that warms parts of the central Pacific. The El Nino, while not quite a record breaker in strength, formed a year ago has been blamed, along with human-caused climate change and overall ocean warmth, for a wild 12 months of heat waves and extreme weather.
The world is now in a neutral condition when it comes to the important natural El Nino Southern Oscillation, which warps weather systems worldwide. Neutral is when weather gets closer to long-term averages or normal, something that hasn’t happened as much recently as it used to, said NOAA physical scientist Michelle L’Heureux, who is the lead forecaster of the agency’s ENSO team. But it likely won’t last, she added.
She said there’s a 65% chance that a La Nina, a cooling of the same parts of the Pacific that often has opposite effects, will form in the July, August and September time period. One of the biggest effects of La Nina is that it tends to make Atlantic hurricane season more active, and that storm season starts its peak in August.
“The likelihood of a La Nina coupled with record warm sea surface temperatures is the reason the National Hurricane Center is forecasting an extraordinary hurricane season,” said Kathie Dello, North Carolina’s state climatologist. “States from Texas to Maine are making preparations for an active year.”
Both El Nino and La Nina create “potential hot spots” for extreme weather but in different places and of different types, L’Heureux said.
“La Nina tends to, in the winter, bring drier conditions across the southern tier of the United States and if you put global warming on top of that, that could also mean those drier conditions could intensify into droughts,” L’Heureux said.
That’s because storm systems, mostly in the winter, move slightly northward with a shift in the jet stream during La Nina years, bringing more rain and snow north, L’Heureux said.
Even though a La Nina tends to be cooler, there will likely be a residual effect of the exiting El Nino on global temperatures, L’Heureux said. This year has seen each month breaking global records so far.
No more than 8% of last year’s record heat could be attributed to El Nino and other natural variability, a panel of 57 scientists concluded earlier this month. The rest was from human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
A 1999 economic study found that drought from La Nina cost the United States agriculture between $2.2 billion to $6.5 billion, which is far more than the $1.5 billion cost of El Nino. A neutral ENSO is best for agriculture.
Given La Nina’s connection to Atlantic hurricanes and drought in the United States it makes sense that they are generally costlier, but every El Nino and La Nina is different, so people and governments should prepare for them, said meteorologist and economist Michael Ferrari, chief scientific officer of AlphaGeo, a firm that works on financial investments and climate.
The El Nino that just ended “wasn’t a record-breaker in anybody’s book, but it was probably about top five,” L’Heureux said. And it added to overall global temperature and brought more moisture to the southern United States this year, along with drier conditions in parts of South America and Central America, she said. The Horn of Africa got wetter.
Coral reef experts say the combination of record ocean temperatures and the boost of heating from El Nino have led to a major global bleaching event threatening and at times killing vulnerable coral.
Before this year’s El Nino, the world had back-to-back-to-back La Ninas, which is unusual, L’Heureux said. Some studies have shown that the globe should expect more El Ninos and La Ninas — and fewer neutrals — as the world warms, but it’s still an unsettled issue, she said.
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