UN Warns of Potential 'Super' El Niño, Urging Global Preparedness

BRUSSELS — The world must prepare for a surge in weather extremes and heat waves as a potentially exceptional El Niño emerges, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization has warned.

The WMO said on Tuesday that there’s an 80 percent chance of an El Niño — the warm phase of a natural climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean — developing between June and August, and a 90 percent chance the event will arrive by November.

El Niño’s return heralds a temporary upsurge in global temperatures on top of the warming effect of human-caused climate change. The event also disrupts rainfall patterns around the world, usually producing intense downpours and floods in some regions while bringing drought to others.

“El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in a statement Tuesday morning. The world, he added, “must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is.”

The event’s expected impact on agriculture, hydropower supply and electricity demand for cooling will likely further strain the world’s food and energy supplies, coming at a time when many countries are already grappling with fertilizer and fuel shortages due to the Strait of Hormuz blockade.

“Extreme heat alone is already one of the deadliest climate hazards we face. An El Niño event could intensify the threat, on average,” said Celeste Saulo, the WMO’s secretary-general, at a press conference on Tuesday morning.

“More heat-related illness, wider spread of vector-borne diseases, increased pressure on food and water systems, and communities that were already struggling will be pushed further beyond their limits,” she added.

The extent of the impacts depends on El Niño’s strength. And there are signs that the event emerging now will be significant, which is often dubbed a ‘super’ El Niño — though the WMO doesn’t use that term.

An El Niño is considered very strong if sea temperatures in the relevant Pacific region increase by more than 2 degrees Celsius at its peak. The only time this has happened in the 21st century was during the 2015–2016 El Niño.

Several projections, including by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, suggest that not only could this coming El Niño reach 2C, but it may far exceed that threshold.

The most recent El Niño, in 2023, ranked among the five strongest on record and helped turn 2024 into the world’s hottest year. WMO experts already warned last week that the next such event may see 2027 break global temperature records once again.

However, the WMO stressed on Tuesday that the strength and peak of this El Niño are as yet uncertain.

“We will speak about moderate or strong when we are sure about that,” said Saulo. “There are models that are not providing any indication of a strong El Niño, while others are doing so.”

Though El Niño tends to drive up temperatures worldwide, with the most pronounced warming effect occurring in the year after its emergence, the regional impacts vary. For Europe, effects are difficult to predict due to the continent’s distance from the Pacific.

In the southern United States, as well as parts of southern Latin America, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia, the event brings more rainfall, risking floods and landslides, said the WMO. In contrast, Australia, other parts of Latin America, the Caribbean, Southern Asia and Indonesia often face drier conditions.

But, said Saulo, if countries prepare accordingly and ensure early warning systems are in place, "El Niño does not have to be a recipe for disaster."