Met Office Forecasts an El Niño Bigger Than Anything in Its Records
The UK Met Office published a long-range forecast on Aug. 21 showing central tropical Pacific sea-surface temperatures rising more than 3 °C in the coming months, a signal its head of long-range forecasting called "unprecedented." It is a model forecast, not a measurement.
The chart comes from the Met Office's GloSea forecasting system and covers the Niño3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific, the standard patch of ocean used to gauge El Niño. Its caption states that forecasts there "are now showing record values of more than 3 °C in the coming months."
"We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event," Adam Scaife, the Met Office's head of long-range forecasting, said in the post, adding: "I have never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts." A typical El Niño raises equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperatures by 1 to 2 degrees, Scaife said, with 2 degrees "being a really big event." What follows holds only "if the forecast is accurate," he said, noting that other forecast systems show similar extreme values.
Some effects are already showing: the Indian summer monsoon "is already running well below normal rainfall," and there have been only three Atlantic storms so far this season, which the forecast attributes to El Niño increasing wind shear over the tropical Atlantic.
The rest is forecast. The Met Office names Central America, west Pacific nations and tropical South America as at risk of low rainfall, and says southern Africa and northeastern Australia are expected to face heightened drought risk as the event grows toward a winter peak. For northwestern Europe, including the UK, it expects El Niño to increase the chances of a wetter, stormier autumn and early winter.
Nick Dunstone, quoted in the forecast, estimates a knock-on for global temperature: "2027 is very likely to replace 2024 as the warmest year on record and be another year to temporarily exceed +1.5 °C above the preindustrial period."
Meteorologists are continuing to run new forecasts and will publish further updates later in the year.
