The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has issued an updated circular forecasting that the El Niño phenomenon, which has fueled global warming and extreme weather events from 2023 to 2024, is showing signs of ending, although La Niña conditions could return later this year.
The current El Niño peaked in December 2023, one of the five strongest on record, and the probability of a “La Niña” event in 2024 is 60 percent between July and September, increasing to 70 percent between August and November.
El Niño is a climatic phenomenon, understood as a warm water phenomenon, in which persistently high sea temperatures in the central-eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean cause anomalies in atmospheric circulation. This event increases global temperatures in the tropical Pacific, mainly by heating the atmosphere. The counterpart of El Niño is La Niña, which is a phenomenon in which sea surface temperatures in the central-eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean are persistently and abnormally cold over a wide area.
