Will El Ni?o occur in 2020?

With the changes in the industrialization era, global warming can be said to have increased a lot, mainly because greenhouse gas emissions are much stronger than before. Although many countries in the world have signed the Paris Agreement, But not all countries are complying, and we don’t seem to be seeing results, but rather intensification. According to climate reports from NOAA and NASA, global temperatures are continuing to rise, so the impact is becoming stronger. The chain effects caused by global warming have also increased a lot. For example, the most common are natural phenomena such as high temperature and drought, followed by some regular climate phenomena, such as El Ni?o-La Ni?a events.

The era of industrialization has intensified the El Ni?o phenomenon

According to the scientific report "Geophysical Review Letters", scientists have now determined that the advent of the industrialization era has intensified the instability of the El Ni?o phenomenon. Become more intense. Meanwhile, a stronger El Ni?o intensifies storms, droughts and coral bleaching. The new research results have conquered previously controversial issues. Scientific researchers have used the first-ever known "century-spanning" physical evidence to illustrate.

Research results show that El Ni?o, La Ni?a and the climate phenomena that drive them have become more extreme during periods of human-induced climate change, and both their frequency and intensity have exceeded the original "basic line". According to researcher Kim Cobb, over the past 50 years we have seen conditions that exceed natural variability.

This has been very obvious throughout the industrial era. Three extremely strong El Ni?o-La Ni?a events occurred. This was an event that scientists did not predict. The sudden El Ni?o-La Ni?a event brought great consequences to mankind. There were a lot of influences.

Use ancient coral groups to explain the changing process of El Ni?o

In order to explain the changing process of El Ni?o more accurately, the ancient coral groups in the ocean can be said to be the most convincing evidence, because it It records a temperature transition throughout the ocean fluctuation period and is equivalent to a "historic thermometer." This time, scientific researchers collected older coral records related to related sea surface temperatures over the past 7,000 years for comparison. The pattern of the El Ni?o Southern Oscillation (ENSO) was identified, and the study found that the amplitude of ENSO fluctuations during the industrial era was 25% higher than pre-industrial records.

The most "miraculous" thing is that coral colonies can be said to be persistent potential underwater. When establishing benchmark tests, scientists found that coral sea surface temperature records were very accurate, such as from 1981 to 2015. The coral record data of 2018 shows that it is completely consistent with the sea surface temperature measured by satellite during the same period, so there is no difference at all. The most amazing thing is that some of the temperature changes recorded by corals are not even measured by satellites, so this has a strong influence.

Scientist Grote said that this once again proves that a natural "thermometer" is better than anything else. It has been lurking in and around the shallow waters of the Pacific Ocean, where ENSO and El Ni?o happen to be. The birthplace of the phenomenon, so the relationship between the two is obviously very close.

Scientists are now drilling into coral communities and fossil coral sediments, and analyzing them to derive a temperature change process of the entire ENSO and El Ni?o phenomena at different times. Enough coral data has been accumulated since 2018 and will allow us to see the most accurate data possible by distinguishing ENSO's recent activity from its natural pre-industrial pattern.

What is El Ni?o?

El Ni?o is a natural phenomenon, and its opposite is La Ni?a. Generally speaking, it occurs every two to seven years. This is because the expansion of ENSO in the warm period causes the tropical Pacific to be in a relatively high temperature situation, and its impact can be said to be irrespective of region. All over the world's oceans and land. Causes extreme weather phenomena such as heavy rain, strong winds, high or low temperatures in unusual places. When El Ni?o disappears, the cycle reverses to La Ni?a when air currents normally push warm water westward and channel cold water in the equatorial Pacific. This triggered another set of global extreme weather.

However, judging from the current situation, this pattern does not seem to have always been maintained, because this year, an international scientific research team showed that after experiencing the El Ni?o phenomenon in 2019, it is still possible in 2020 If it appears again and returns to the earth, the climate may be "not so good" and will change drastically. Therefore, under the influence of climate, the El Ni?o phenomenon may no longer have a regular state. If it really occurs, then it will You can be sure that it has indeed changed.

Long-term prediction of "El Ni?o" events

With the development of science and technology, the prediction of El Ni?o has also been further improved. According to the "Climate Journal" report, in new climate simulations Among them, the model is able to predict El Ni?o events for up to two and a half months for the first time, and it is known several years in advance, so this is very helpful for us to prevent the possible impact of El Ni?o. A series of predictions are used in the model Variables include seawater temperatures at different depths and wind direction, wind speed and other data in the tropical Pacific. Retrospective predictions were made of ENSO events from 1970 to 2016, and the model was able to predict all major El Ni?o events that occurred during that period, including the 2015-2016 extreme event predicted two and a half years in advance.

So the accuracy is also good. In this way, humans will have time to defend themselves, so there is no need to worry too much about the impact of El Ni?o.

At the end of the day, we still have to say that in fact, the ultimate problem with the "variation" of these phenomena is the climate issue. Now that the global temperature continues to rise, it is impossible to maintain it well. So if we don’t solve the climate problem, everything else is just talk. Once the climate problem is solved, these climate "chain effects" phenomena will also disappear, so protect the earth and stop blaming others. If the earth continues to become more extreme, then humans may really embark on the path of "regret" and think about it again. Back to the previous good climate state, it was basically a "zero fantasy" state.

Author: Wen/Yu Ziqi