Climate experts predict that, due to climate change and the predicted return of the El Nino weather phenomenon, the world's average temperature might break a new record in 2023 or 2024.
According to climate projections, the globe will witness a return to El Nino, its warmer counterpart, later this year following three years of the cooler La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which typically reduces global temperatures significantly.
El Nino occurs when winds moving west near the equator slow down, and warmer water is pushed east, raising the temperature of the ocean's surface.
Carlo Buontempo, head of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, believes that El Nino, often linked to extreme global temperatures that shatter records, will probably occur in 2023 or 2024, according to Reuters.
Buontempo said climate models predict a return to El Nino temperatures in the late boreal summer and a significant El Nino by year's end.
Earth Continues To Heat Up
Global temperatures have increased, and severe weather events have become more frequent as a result of the El Nino climatic phenomenon.
While climate change has contributed to extreme temperatures in years without El Nino, 2016 is the hottest year on record, according to Euronews. Since then, the planet has continued to experience a warming trend, with the last eight years being the hottest ever recorded. Furthermore, ocean temperatures have reached unprecedented levels.
The climate pattern of the ocean and atmosphere also impacts global weather, leading to droughts in some regions and causing floods in others, leaving tens of millions of people needing relief, per Axios.
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