The effects of El Niño will be felt the most between February and April, according to NASA.
According to NASA experts, there is a 50% chance that 2023 will be the hottest year on record on Earth.
And since the most significant effects of El Niño are yet to be felt, the year 2024 will be even warmer.
Last month was the hottest July “by far,” confirmed Sarah Kapnick, chief scientist of the US Agency for Oceanic and Atmospheric Observations (NOAA), at a press conference on Monday.
Greenhouse gases produced by human activity have been identified as the main contributor to global warming.
2023 is shaping up to be a year of record heat
According to the US Center for Environmental Information’s (NCEI) annual outlook on global temperatures, it is “virtually certain” that 2023 will rank among the five warmest years on record. So far, 2023 is already in third place.
With the greatest effects of the warming Pacific Ocean phenomenon known as El Niño expected between February and April 2024, next year is likely to be even warmer.
Scientists fear that this could help push the planet past the 1.5°C warming limit and cause extreme weather events such as droughts, storms and floods.
Earlier this month, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) confirmed that July was the hottest month on record on Earth.
The United States Agency for Oceanic and Atmospheric Observation corroborated this information on Monday, with figures showing that temperatures were more than 0.2 ° C higher than the previous record set in 2019.
“Last month was much, much warmer than anything we’ve ever seen,” said Sarah Kapnick.
Parts of North and South America, North Africa and the Antarctic Peninsula have been particularly hot, with temperature increases around 4 degrees above average, experts from the Nasa.
Ocean surface temperatures also hit a record high for the fourth month in a row, contributing to the record warm July.
Mother Nature sends us a message
With the past nine years being the hottest since NASA records began in 1880, space agency administrator Bill Nelson issued a warning: “Mother Nature is sending us a message, and that message is this: ‘We better act now, before it’s too late to save our planet’.
Warming temperatures have triggered a cascade of disasters, from melting sea ice and rising sea levels to wildfires, floods and storms in recent months.
“What happens in the oceans doesn’t stay in the oceans, it affects the whole planet,” said Carlos Del Castillo, head of NASA’s Ocean Ecology Laboratory.
While El Niño has exacerbated extreme weather events, the US space agency said man-made emissions were the main culprit, especially over the past four decades.
“We expect many of these effects to intensify with continued warming,” said Katherine Calvin, chief scientist and senior climate adviser at NASA.
“There are no political or geographical borders, we are all concerned”, added Bill Nelson.
This article is originally published on fr.euronews.com
