After hurricanes damaged the roof and caused extensive structural damage to his home, Miami resident Benjamin Thomas has always kept up with annual tropical storm season outlooks issued by meteorologists, always deciding to err on the side of caution and prepare for the worst, no matter what the forecasts call for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This year, Thomas has been reading a lot about how the climate phenomenon known as El Ni\u00f1o could suppress tropical storm development in the Atlantic. \u201cAnything that can help decrease the number of hurricanes would be a godsend,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Characterized by warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, El Ni\u00f1o events are known to increase upper-level vertical wind shear across the Atlantic, bringing stronger winds that tear developing storms apart. The latest outlook from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts projects an increased chance for a strong El Ni\u00f1o this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the computer climate models are predicting an El Ni\u00f1o for later this year,\u201d said Emily Becker<\/a>, a research associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science<\/a>. \u201cIn addition to the models, another indicator we look for a few months ahead of time is the amount of warmer water underneath the surface of the Tropical Pacific, and right now, those temperatures are elevated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n El Ni\u00f1o events occur every two to seven years and typically last from nine to 12 months. Its counterpart, La Ni\u00f1a, which means \u201clittle girl\u201d in Spanish, is distinguished by cooler-than-normal temperatures in the Pacific. Both can influence weather patterns across the globe.<\/p>\n \u201cCurrently, there\u2019s about an 62\u00a0percent chance that an El Ni\u00f1o will develop by fall, with a one-in-three chance that it will eventually become a strong event,\u201d Becker said.<\/p>\n Though a strong El Ni\u00f1o, meaning \u201clittle boy\u201d in Spanish, may result in suppressed Atlantic hurricane activity and wetter winter conditions in the Southeast, the phenomenon will spawn far different weather conditions in other parts of the country, Becker pointed out.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn the Southwest, El Ni\u00f1o winters can be wetter and cooler, which would be good for the drought that\u2019s developing there,\u201d she said. \u201cMore storms can impact the West Coast, which will sometimes lead to flooding and landslides. And the Pacific Northwest tends to be drier during an El Ni\u00f1o year. And with a stronger El Ni\u00f1o, we have more confidence that we will see those typical impacts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And for the Pacific, which experiences warmer-than-average ocean temperatures during an El Ni\u00f1o, an increase in tropical storm development would be likely, Becker said.\u00a0<\/p>\n But to what extent El Ni\u00f1o will impact the approaching Atlantic hurricane season will depend on several of factors\u2014chief among them, the timing of the climate pattern\u2019s arrival and just how much Atlantic Ocean temperatures will heat up.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the onset of El Ni\u00f1o comes in a little late, then the effect on Atlantic wind shear would be minimal,\u201d said Ben Kirtman<\/a>, a professor of atmospheric sciences and dean of the Rosenstiel School. \u201cThe second issue is temperatures in the Atlantic. Extremely warm Atlantic Ocean temperatures can offset the shear effect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Also in play: the timing of the Madden-Julian Oscillation, or MJO. An eastward moving disturbance of clouds, rainfall, winds, and pressure that traverses the planet in the tropics and returns to its initial starting point in 30 to 60 days, MJO can have a noticeable impact on hurricane seasons. \u201cIf the timing of the enhanced wet phase of the MJO coincides with hurricane season, then we could expect more storm activity,\u201d Kirtman explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n But whatever factors influence the approaching Atlantic hurricane season the most, \u201cit\u2019s still too early to forecast just how far below average the season might be,\u201d said Andy Hazelton<\/a>, an associate scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies<\/a>, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agency based at the Rosenstiel School that Kirtman directs. \u201cIt will depend on what Atlantic sea surface temperatures are like, and right now they\u2019re average or a little below.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n While artificial intelligence and machine learning are being increasingly employed to enhance weather and climate forecasting, their use in predicting El Ni\u00f1o events is still\u2014at least for now\u2014somewhat limited, according to Becker.<\/p>\n \u201cThose computer models need a huge amount of data to train, and we\u2019ve had only about 75 years of ENSO events,\u201d said Becker, referring to the climate phenomenon known as El Ni\u00f1o-Southern Oscillation, a natural two- to seven-year cycle of Pacific Ocean temperature fluctuations switching between warm (El Ni\u00f1o), cold (La Ni\u00f1a), and neutral phases.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd in those 75 years,\u201d Becker said, \u201cthere\u2019s been about 25 El Ni\u00f1o and 25 La Ni\u00f1a events. So, it\u2019s hard to get enough data to train those machine learning models.\u201d<\/p>\n As AI models evolve, they may eventually catch up in their ability to forecast El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a events.\u00a0For now, though, researchers mostly rely on dynamical models of observed conditions, employing \u201call the math and physics we\u2019ve discovered in the last 150 years to calculate potential outcomes,\u201d Becker explained.<\/p>\n In the weeks ahead, researchers will be closely monitoring Pacific Ocean temperatures to help gauge just how strong an El Ni\u00f1o will develop.<\/p>\n \u201cNo matter what,\u201d said Miami resident Thomas, \u201cI\u2019ll be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After hurricanes damaged the roof and caused extensive structural damage to his home, Miami resident Benjamin Thomas has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-224172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}