This year's El Nino set to be strongest in more than a century, UK forecasters say
Britain's Met Office has predicted sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific will reach an "unheard-of" level of potentially more than three degrees above average, triggering severe droughts across South America and the West Pacific. Such an event would have serious knock-on effects for global food security.
The UK's Met Office has forecast that this year's El Nino event will be the strongest in over a century. According to the Met Office, sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific are expected to reach an "unheard-of" level of more than three degrees above average.
This event is predicted to trigger severe droughts in South America and the West Pacific, with potential knock-on effects for global food security. The Met Office's head of long-range forecasting, Adam Scaife, described the El Nino signal as "unprecedented" and "an intense" event.
The anomalous warmth is already nearly two degrees above average, with temperatures in the region currently running about 2.6C above a rolling 30-year average, according to the Climate Brink dashboard.
Brief written by urgent.news from France 24, The Vibes, Malay Mail — 3 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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