IN BRIEFEl Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a are part of the El Ni\u00f1o-Southern Oscillation, a naturally occurring weather cycle.A super El Ni\u00f1o requires sea surface temperatures to rise at least two degrees Celsius above average.<\/p>\n
As the weather changes, concerns are rising for a possible extreme El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n
However, weather experts aren’t convinced that this year’s El Ni\u00f1o event will be anything out of the ordinary.<\/p>\n
What is an El Ni\u00f1o?<\/p>\n
El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a are part of the naturally occurring weather, the El Ni\u00f1o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). <\/p>\n
The cycle typically operates over one to eight years and alternates between periods of warming (El Ni\u00f1o) and cooling (La Ni\u00f1a) in the eastern and central tropical Pacific.<\/p>\n
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The tropical Pacific is the warm, equatorial region of the Pacific Ocean, which stretches along almost one-third of the Earth’s surface, along the equator.<\/p>\n
It’s the area responsible for global climate regulation and weather patterns.<\/p>\n
Rising sea surface temperature in this region and weakened equatorial trade winds cause an El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n
For Australia, El Ni\u00f1o brings reduced rainfall, warmer temperatures, a shift in temperature extremes, increased frost risk, decreased alpine snow depths and increased fire danger in southeast regions.<\/p>\n
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Alternatively, La Ni\u00f1a occurs when trade winds become stronger.<\/p>\n
Winds change ocean surface currents and pulls cold water from the sea depths to the surface – lowering the sea surface temperature.<\/p>\n
La Ni\u00f1a in Australia can mean increased rainfall, cooler daytime temperatures and warmer overnight temperatures, a shift in temperature extremes, decreased frost risk, increased tropical cyclone events and earlier monsoon onset.<\/p>\n
What is a ‘super El Ni\u00f1o’?<\/p>\n
On 2 June, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) announced the formation of an El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n
Less than a week later, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that there’s a 63 per cent chance the El Ni\u00f1o event would become “very strong”.<\/p>\n
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Identifying an El Ni\u00f1o depends on sea surface temperatures.<\/p>\n
While some scientists define an El Ni\u00f1o as a temperature anomaly of 0.5 degrees Celsius above average, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology defines an El Ni\u00f1o as 0.8 degrees Celsius above average.<\/p>\n
For a super, or extreme, El Ni\u00f1o sea surface temperature would be at least 2 to 2.5 degrees Celsius warmer than average.<\/p>\n
The last super El Ni\u00f1o reported was in 2015.<\/p>\n
A super El Ni\u00f1o can disrupt atmospheric circulation, leading to severe weather events such as thunderstorms and tropical cyclones in the eastern equatorial region.<\/p>\n
For the western Pacific region, which includes Australia, super El Ni\u00f1os can cause devastating droughts and wildfires \u2014 including the Ash Wednesday bushfires of February 1983.<\/p>\n
Super El Ni\u00f1os can cause an increased decline in marine life, and massive global economic loss.<\/p>\n
Why won’t there be a super El Ni\u00f1o this year?<\/p>\n
The chances of a super El Ni\u00f1o in 2026 are slim, particularly because it follows a triple La Ni\u00f1a between late 2020 and mid-2022.<\/p>\n
Since 1950, there have been five three-year La Ni\u00f1a events reported. The latest was from 2020-2022. Before that, La Ni\u00f1a events were recorded from 1998-2000, 1983-1985, 1973-1975, and 1954-1956.<\/p>\n
None of these triple La Ni\u00f1a events were followed by a super El Ni\u00f1o; only a strong El Ni\u00f1o in 1957.<\/p>\n
READ MORE<\/p>\n
In April, the BoM predicted an El Ni\u00f1o would form between May and July, but didn’t raise any concerns for a super event.<\/p>\n
While this year’s El Ni\u00f1o is unlikely to be extreme, research suggests super events may increase with climate change.<\/p>\n
For the latest from SBS News, download our app<\/a> and subscribe to our newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IN BRIEFEl Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a are part of the El Ni\u00f1o-Southern Oscillation, a naturally occurring weather cycle.A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-733383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}