But what chain of events has to happen for high temperatures in the Pacific to translate into severe floods, droughts and storms around the world? And what role does climate change play in El Ni\u00f1o? <\/p>\n
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly<\/a> podcast, Ioana Colfescu, an expert in climate and machine learning at the University of St Andrews and the University of Edinburgh, explains how El Ni\u00f1o works and what it could mean for the world. <\/p>\n In the early 1600s, fishermen in Peru and Ecuador noticed something unusual. Their nets were usually flush with anchovies which thrive in the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean. But every few years, the waters began to turn warmer, driving the anchovies away. They called this phenomenon El Ni\u00f1o, meaning little boy, or Christ child, because it tends to peak around Christmas time.<\/p>\n Centuries later, scientists would understand that this warmer water in the equatorial Pacific is part of a naturally occurring cycle and they would start trying to predict when the next one was coming and how bad it would be.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have indicators that place this El Ni\u00f1o in a similar pattern or signs that other very large El Ni\u00f1os had,\u201d says Colfescu. \u201cBut while we know it\u2019s gonna be a big event in terms of temperature, this temperature index is not yet defined as a big event in terms of impact.\u201d <\/p>\n The 2023-24 El Ni\u00f1o was one of the top five strongest ever recorded. While it dramatically affected some parts of the world, including severe flooding in Brazil<\/a>, and also contributed to 2024 being the hottest year ever recorded<\/a>, some of the expected effects did not materialise. Colfescu says that\u2019s because El Ni\u00f1o\u2019s \u201cimpacts are nuanced \u2026 and the response across the tropics, can be different to the one [outside the] tropics\u201d. <\/p>\n Whatever severe weather conditions do happen, Colfescu says they\u2019re likely to be \u201cmade much worse because the El Ni\u00f1o right now is overlapped on an already warm ocean because of climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n Listen to Colfescu explain the mechanisms behind El Ni\u00f1o on The Conversation Weekly<\/a> podcast.<\/em> <\/p>\n This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl.<\/em><\/p>\n Newsclips in this episode from Al Jazeera English<\/a>, KCRA 3<\/a>, Bloomberg-News<\/a>, CBC News<\/a> and DW News<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed<\/a> or find out how else to listen here<\/a>. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.<\/em><\/p>\n Ioana Colfescu is the Digital Atmosphere Programme Leader at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, which has also provided her with research funding. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" El Ni\u00f1o has begun and forecasters predict a more than 60% chance that the naturally occurring phenomenon could become a very strong, or super El Ni\u00f1o later in 2026. El Ni\u00f1o begins with warmer water in the Pacific Ocean near the equator and can have a cascade of dramatic effects on the world\u2019s weather. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/286584\/count.gif\")
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