The 'El Niño' climate phenomenon, which has lasted since last year, has officially peaked, according to the Daily Mail. However, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) it will still continue to influence weather conditions around the world in the coming months.
El Niño, which has pushed global temperatures to record levels and caused a myriad of extreme weather, floods and droughts, is the result of the ocean and atmosphere interacting in an area of the Pacific that only occurs once every two to seven years. Although figures point to the current El Niño as the strongest thus far, the WMO reports that it is still too early to tell if it will break the record for the strongest ever recorded.
"We have just witnessed one of the most powerful ever El Nino events which caused extreme weather in countries on all continents and helped fuel record global heat in 2015," said Petteri Taalas, WMO's secretary general. "In meteorological terms, this El Nino is now in decline. But we cannot lower our guard as it is still quite strong and in humanitarian and economic terms, its impacts will continue for many months to come."
The WMO claims that El Niño will likely fade out during the second quarter of 2016 and believes that the lessons learned from the passing climate phenomenon can be used to endure similar conditions in the future and deal with weather-related hazards more effectively, according to the Philippine Star.
"Parts of South America and East Africa are still recovering from torrential rains and flooding," said Talas. "The economic and human toll from drought...is becoming increasingly apparent in southern (Africa) and the Horn of Africa, central America and a number of other regions."
Although scientists claim that weather patterns such as El Niño are not caused by climate change, they say that the rising ocean temperatures caused by global warming do have an effect on their intensity and frequency, according to Raw Story.
