A team of climate scientists created a numerical simulation that predicts half of El Niño instances will be "extreme", when the area warms by 3.6°F above average, by 2050, and they believe lower CO2 emissions will prevent it. El Niño is when water temperatures along the equator in the Pacific Ocean rise by at least 0.9 °F above average. Even recurring marginal temperature change can shift wind patterns and ocean currents, which may cause heat waves, floods and droughts. In some cases it can have drastic impact. During the winter of 1997-98, El Niño brought record rainfall to California and mudslides killed people, while about 15% of coral reefs were impacted.
Temperature readings in most places were not accurate until the 1980s but the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began collecting data in the 1950s and say there have been 4 extreme El Niño events in 70 years, so a computer simulation that suggests 6 in the next 25 is provocative. Using what estimates they had of the past, the researchers modeled the past 21,000 years and predictably found that El Niño was more rare during the periodic ice ages that dominated 90,000 of every 100,000 years of world history. Those past ocean temperature data were retrieved from fossilized shells of single-celled foraminifera. By analyzing the type of oxygen compounds preserved in the fossilized shells, the team reconstructed how El Niño drove ocean temperature fluctuations across the Pacific Ocean for the past 21,000 years and calibrated to that.
Satellite sea surface temperature departure in the Pacific Ocean for October 2015, where darker orange-red colors are above normal temperatures and are indicative of El Niño. Credit: NOAA
There are too many variables to create an accurate climate model of this kind, and if predicting the past meant predicting the future the US wouldn't have had rampant inflation over the last few years. Instead, weight of evidence is invoked. Namely, other claims that climate change is already creating more extreme events, but those are only using insurance claims data.
The good news is that progress is being made on climate. After expensive failed experiments with solar and wind which accomplished very little, western governments dominated by political constituents who were reflexively opposed to nuclear energy are now showing acceptance of science for the first time in 60 years. China already has a 4th generation nuclear plant and the United States even allowed construction of one.
If we continue to approve technology that works, 2 billion people may get centralized energy and stop having to use dung and wood in their homes for fuel, so El Niño will just be back to awful, instead of extremely awful.
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