By Emma Alejandro
Correspondent
The world’s oceans reached their hottest temperatures ever recorded on Aug. 22, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service announced, according to The Associated Press. The average surface temperature of the water was 21.1 degrees Celsius.
El Niño may be the strongest it has been since 1950, according to the Climate Prediction Center, a prospect that could make 2027 to be the hottest year on record.
The National Ocean Service describes El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO as a climate cycle that occurs in the Pacific Ocean and carries warm surface water along South America’s western coast. It occurs periodically every two to seven years and upheaves global weather patterns lasting nine to 12 months or longer.
During El Niño, global sea levels temporarily rise and trade winds typically weaken, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, influencing marine life, water temperatures, coastal flooding, wildfires and upwelling. Yet, according to the EU Climate Monitor, the world’s oceans have already “hit their hottest ever recorded temperatures for July,” a finding reported by the BBC.
NPR, the Council on Foreign Relations, and National Geographic have all called this year’s weather event a “Super El Niño.” It begs the question: Why is this naturally occurring phenomenon now reaching such extreme levels?
NOAA noted El Niño is a natural fluctuation in the Pacific Ocean–atmosphere system, but today it is unfolding within a climate system that has accumulated an unprecedented amount of heat.
According to NPR correspondent and Climate Desk reporter Lauren Sommer, “The planet is already about 2 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter from burning fossil fuels.”
Climate scientist Julia Nicole of the University of Michigan, compared past El Niños to today’s. She reported that, “What we found is that the modern El Niños are significantly stronger than the ones that we saw in the pre-Industrial Era. So that leads us to believe that strong El Nino events that we're seeing now are a consequence of being in a warmer world.” Her findings revealed that modern El Ninos are 36% stronger than those before the Industrial era.
Greenhouse gas emissions have caused the planet to retain more heat, and the oceans have absorbed the overwhelming majority of that additional energy (NOAA). El Niño’s intensity and its effects are due to how it is now operating on top of an already much warmer baseline according to Chico Harlan of The New York Times).
Global climate correspondent for the The New York Times, Chico Harlan, spoke about the possible effects people may see once they approach El Niño’s peak in December.
Harlan reported in The New York Times’ The Daily that there was another historically large El Niño that occurred in 1877.
The event coincided with the Global Famine of 1876–78, one of the deadliest environmental disasters of the nineteenth century. According to researchers at Columbia University, El Niño brought severe droughts to already vulnerable regions across Asia, Africa and South America. As a result, there were an estimated 50 million fatalities.
“It was a famine that killed…about 3 percent to 4 percent of the population…There were droughts at the same time in Ethiopia, China, Egypt, Morocco, Brazil…El Niño came and exacerbated those circumstances,” he said.
Harlan continued to explain that “this El Niño is already big in August, already big enough that if this was its December size, its full-grown size, it would already be one of the biggest on record.” There is still time for El Niño to grow even larger.
Over the next few months, ocean temperatures are expected to continue warming. According to The Associated Press, Jane Lubchenco, an oceanographer and former chief of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said “An ocean this warm destabilizes weather patterns and threatens food security, economic prosperity and marine life. A warmer ocean is not our friend”
According to NASA, water expands as it warms, contributing to sea-level rise. At the same time, the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, increasing its acidity and in turn, threatens marine organisms and disrupts food webs and fisheries. Warmer waters also exacerbate coral bleaching because corals are forced to release the symbiotic algae they depend on (NOAA).
Experts like Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead for Copernicus are skeptical that marine life will be able to maintain their normal ecosystems under the conditions the supersized El Niño is bringing.
On an international scale, El Niño is directly correlated to dry spells and crop failures. The United Nations World Food Programme says that El Niño could move an additional “49 million to experience acute hunger” by the end of 2027.
The reach of El Niño is already visible across different regions. In Panama, declining rainfall threatens the water supply that keeps the Panama Canal operating. In Indonesia, suppressed rainfall is intensifying wildfire conditions. Ethiopia and Kenya are experiencing prolonged droughts that are putting agricultural production at risk.
According to Reuters, India entered the summer with one of its driest Junes on record, threatening crops that heavily depend on monsoon rainfall.
El Niño does not produce the same outcome everywhere. While it is suppressing Atlantic tropical activity overall, according to The New York Times, Tropical Storm Dolly has “grown organized enough for a name since the season began in June” and was among four storms to do so.
