NASA has identified early signs of El Niño from space, after one among its satellites spotted warm water within the Pacific Ocean moving eastward toward the west coast of South America in March and April.
Data from the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite, which monitors sea levels, showed Kelvin waves moving across the Pacific. These long ocean waves are only 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) high but are a whole lot of miles wide. They’re considered to be a precursor to El Niño after they form on the equator and move the nice and cozy upper layer of water to the western Pacific.
“We’ll be watching this El Niño like a hawk,” Josh Willis, a project scientist on Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said in an announcement. “If it’s an enormous one, the globe will see record warming.”
Related: 10 signs of devastating climate change seen from space
How often does El Niño occur?
El Niño is part of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate cycle. Normally, prevailing easterly winds along the equator, often known as trade winds, blow surface water west across the Pacific, moving warm water from South America towards Asia. As the nice and cozy water moves, cold water rises up to switch it.
El Niño is linked to weakened trade winds, causing the nice and cozy water to be pushed east.
This causes a big impact on weather patterns all over the world. For the U.S., it means wetter weather within the southern parts and warmer weather in northwestern areas.
Its counterpart, La Niña, has the other effect, with strong trade winds pushing more warm water west.
El Niño normally hits once every three to 5 years, but it may well occur kind of ceaselessly. The last El Niño was in 2019 and lasted for six months, between February and August.
Is it an El Niño yr?
On May 11, National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) representatives said there was a 90% likelihood El Niño would hit this yr and persist into the Northern Hemisphere’s winter. In line with NOAA’s predictions, there’s an 80% likelihood it would be not less than a moderate El Niño — where ocean surface temperatures rise by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius).
There’s a 55% likelihood of a robust El Niño, with temperatures rising by 2.7 F (1.5 C), NOAA said.
An announcement from JPL released May 12 said images taken by the Sentinel-6 satellite between the beginning of March and the top of April show Kelvin waves moving warm water east, pooling it off the coasts of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The red and white parts of the animation represent warmer water and better sea levels.
“Ocean waves slosh heat across the planet, bringing heat and moisture to our coasts and changing our weather,” Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, NASA program scientist and manager for Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, said within the statement.
The NOAA and NASA will proceed to watch conditions within the Pacific over the approaching months to find out if and when El Niño will hit — and the way strong it might be. “Here within the Southwest U.S. we might be one other wet winter, right on the heels of the soaking we got last winter,” Willis said.
In April, scientists recorded the highest ever ocean surface temperatures, with the worldwide average reaching 69.98 F (21.1 C). This record reflects the impact of climate change and the last La Niña coming to an end. “Now La Niña is over and the tropical Pacific, which is a big expansive ocean, is warming up,” Michael McPhaden, an oceanographer on the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, previously told Live Science.
Willis told Nature the mix of El Niño and supercharged ocean temperatures could mean a “string of record highs” in the subsequent 12 months. “This coming yr is gonna be a wild ride if the El Niño really takes off,” he said.