The UN warns that temperature records could be broken as the chance of El Niño rises

The chance of the El Niño weather phenomenon developing in the coming months has increased, the United Nations said, warning that it could fuel higher global temperatures and possibly new temperature records. The United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday that it now estimates there is a 60 percent chance of El Niño developing by the end of July and an 80 percent chance of doing so by the end of September. "This is going to change weather and climate patterns around the world," Wilfran Moufouma Okia, head of the WMO's regional climate prediction service, told reporters in Geneva. El Niño, a naturally occurring climate pattern usually associated with increased heat around the world, as well as drought in some parts of the world and heavy rains elsewhere, last occurred in 2018-19. Since 2020, however, the world has been hit by an exceptionally long La Niña – a cooling to El Niño – that ended earlier this year and gave way to the current neutral conditions. Still, the United Nations said the past eight years were the warmest on record, despite the cooling effect of La Niña spanning almost half of that period. Without this meteorological phenomenon, the warming situation could have been even worse. La Niña "acted as a temporary brake on global temperature increases," WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement. Now, he said, "the world should prepare for the development of El Niño." The expected arrival of climate warming, he said, "will most likely lead to a new increase in global warming and increase the chance of breaking temperature records." At this stage, there is no indication of the strength or duration of the looming El Niño. The last one was considered very weak, but the previous one, from 2014 to 2016, was considered one of the strongest ever, with dire consequences. (Agence France-Presse)