The climate phenomenon El Niño, which has led to a jump in global temperatures and extreme weather conditions around the world, will change to La Niña at the end of 2024.
This is what the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) predicts.
A La Niña event will cause a large-scale cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, combined with changes in tropical atmospheric circulation, namely winds, pressure, and precipitation.
However, the end of El Niño and the return to La Niña does not mean that there will be a pause in long-term climate change, as our planet will continue to warm due to heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
The last nine years were the warmest on record, even with the cooling effect of the multi-year La Niña that lasted from 2020 to early 2023. El Niño peaked in December 2023.
"Our weather will continue to be more extreme because of the extra heat and moisture in our atmosphere," said Ko Barrett, who heads the WMO delegation to the UN climate change session in Bonn.
- The Earth is getting hotter — the UN has declared 2023 the warmest year on record since 1850. Scientists believe that most of these climate changes are caused by human activity and the occurrence of the El Niño phenomenon.