Yahoo News Could next summer be even hotter? Expert warns El Nino could boost temperatures in 2019
After Britain baked for weeks in a blistering heatwave this summer, the return of the El Niño weather pattern could turn temperatures up again next year.
The El Niño weather pattern, which occurs every few years, is associated with warmer and wetter weather – and the Met Office is now forecasting a weak to moderate El Niño this winter.
A Met Office expert says this could have knock-on warming effects on temperature next year.
El Niño is a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific that typically occurs every few years – and which has an impact on weather worldwide.
Professor Adam Scaife, the head of long-term to decadal climate prediction at the Met Office Hadley Centre said in a Met Office blog, ‘There is a range of forecasts, but the most likely scenario is for the development of a weak to moderate strength El Niño event.
El Niño is the warm phase of the so-called El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) – the largest natural fluctuation in the earth’s climate system, stretching along the equator across the Pacific Ocean.
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During more extreme El Niño events, such as the event beginning in late 2015, the surface ocean temperature rose almost 3.0 °C above the long-term average.
This winter’s anticipated event is expected to be far less, around 0.5-1.0 °C above normal.
Scaife said, ‘El Niño events have a marked but delayed warming effect on global temperature and we will be quantifying this in our global temperature forecast for 2019 later this year.’
The forecaster said that reports about ‘months of frost’ this winter was speculation.
Scaife said, ‘Understanding the influence that the ENSO cycle can have on the world’s weather patterns is a useful tool for long-range weather forecasting, but it’s important to understand that it’s not the only factor which determines our weather here in the UK.
‘An El Niño can create wetter and windier conditions in the first half of winter and it can bring a colder and drier second half, but El Niño is just one factor and others will vie to affect our winter. For example, the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) with its 14-month pattern of alternating easterly and westerly winds along the equator can weaken or strengthen the jet stream.’
