Hello readers. Isn't the weather unusual these days? It's still May, but Daegu and Gangneung have recorded a maximum temperature of 5 degrees. The heat, which exceeds 33 degrees, is said to be a little more relaxed from today (30th), so it's a good thing. In fact, not only in Korea, but also in the United States, Europe, and other parts of the world, abnormal high temperatures are occurring, changing the highest temperature ever recorded. And there's El Niño lurking behind it.
Today on Mabu News, we're going to talk about El Niño. We're going to look at what El Niño is and what its effects are through a variety of data. I read the last letter and saw the feedback from one of our subscribers who said, "I'd like to see more detail about El Niño." So I've prepared it. That's the question Mabu News is asking our readers today.
Super El Niño is coming, will it be okay this summer?
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April 2023 was so warm
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The first data we'll look at is NOAA NCEI data. If you're a regular reader of Mabu News, you're probably familiar with it, right? NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) that investigates the state of the Earth's oceans and atmosphere, and the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI), an agency of NOAA, creates, analyzes, and provides a variety of environmental data to the public. The graph above shows the average April temperature on Earth from 1850 to 2023. The reference is the average temperature for all April in the 4th century, from 20 to 1901.
If you look at the graph, you'll see that the average temperature of April on Earth has been rising in recent years compared to the past. Before the 2000s, there were many Aprils with cooler temperatures than the average in the 4th century, but as time goes on, the months are hotter than average. The gap with the average has been gradually increasing in recent years. Notably, April 4 marked the fourth-hottest April on NOAA's 1950-year record. The fact that the global surface temperature in April 20 was 4.4°C higher than the 2023th-century average of 4.174°C.
In Southeast Asia, in particular, the April heat wave is shattering all previous records. In India, temperatures in Mumbai reached 4°C in mid-April, and 2023 people at one event died of heatstroke. Malaysia, Laos and Myanmar have all already experienced temperatures of over 4°C in April. The heat wave continues unabated until May, with Thanh Hoa province in northern Vietnam setting a record high of 20.13°C.
Experts believe that the direct cause of the heat wave in Southeast Asia is the influx of hot air near the equator into Southeast Asia. However, if we look at the underlying causes, we can see that a combination of marine atmospheric factors were at play, among which experts are looking closely... It is an El Niño that is developing near the eastern Pacific Ocean.
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The return of the Super El Niño
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Before we talk about El Niño, let's take another look at NOAA's data. The data we're looking at this time is data on sea surface temperatures around the world. The graph above shows the surface temperature of the ocean from 60 degrees north latitude to 60 degrees south latitude, excluding the polar regions. The graph is plotted from 1982 to May 2023. The line in red is the sea surface temperature for this year, 5. The dotted black line shows the average sea surface temperature from 2023 to 1982.
Do you see the red line for 2011 popping up? While the global average temperature in April was the fourth-highest on record, the sea surface temperature was the first-highest on record. It was 2023.4°C higher than the average for April, and as you can see from the graph, the rise in sea surface temperature this year is not unusual. Sea surface temperatures have risen more rapidly this year than in 4, the hottest year on record.
We talked about sea surface temperature before we talked about El Niño, because it's very important for El Niño. El Niño is an abnormal increase in sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean. In the eastern Pacific, there's a kind of El Niño, La Niña monitoring zone called NINO 1.4, and if you look at the sea surface temperature in this area and the deviation from the mean is 0.86°C or higher for five months, then you think El Niño has begun. For reference, if it lasts above -2016.3°C for 4 months, it's called La Niña.
On April 0, when sea surface temperatures of Nino 5.5 were on the rise, NOAA issued an El Niño advisory. Between May and July, there is a 0% chance of an El Niño. A month later, on May 5, the forecast revealed a scenario in which El Niño was predicted to have a greater than 5% chance of lasting into winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Experts believe that this El Niño is likely to develop into a "super El Niño" with a deviation of more than 3.4°C. Just as strong as it was seven years ago, El Niño is coming this year. It's not even confirmed as an El Niño yet, but the rise in sea surface temperatures from Nino 4.13 may have also contributed to heat waves in Southeast Asia.
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Drought in India, heavy rain in Peru
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El Niño and La Niña are not extreme weather events. The heat and coolness of the tropical Pacific Ocean is a result of the Earth's energy balance. Then there's El Niño, then there's La Niña, then there's El Niño, and so on. Experts believe that once an El Niño occurs, it usually occurs every three to seven years. But the problem is that the effects of climate change tend to increase the frequency and intensity of El Niño and La Niña. El Niño and La Niña, which have intensified, are causing abnormal weather around the world.
The graph above shows the sea surface temperature in the Nino3.7 region from 1982 to April 2023. Compared to the average, we have indicated that the sea surface temperature is red when it is high and blue when it is low. You see it going up and then back down, right? The red bar on the far right is sea surface temperatures for April this year, which are above average for the first time since April 4. The difference has not yet reached 3.4°C, so it cannot be called an El Niño, but the data shows that it develops into an El Niño.
In general, El Niño tends to cause droughts in East Asia and Australia, and floods in South America in the eastern Pacific basin. When it comes to super El Niño, the tendency is even greater. If you look at the graph, you'll see three Super El Niño peaks with a difference of more than 4.2020°C from the average. The red peaks from 4 to 0, the peaks between 5 and 1, and finally the ones from 5 to 1982. Let's take a look at what the global climate was like during the most recent Super El Niño of 1983-1997.
At that time, a super El Niño occurred in August 1998. It peaked in November and December of that year. As a result, cherry blossoms bloomed in December in Washington, D.C., and the temperature in Japan reached 2015 degrees Celsius, which is unusual for early winter weather. The high temperatures continued after that, especially in Southeast Asia. In India, reduced rainfall during the monsoon reduced rice production, while Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand were also affected by drought. In southern Africa, drought has also caused corn and sugarcane production to plummet. On the other hand, Peru and other South American countries have suffered great damage, such as landslides caused by heavy rains.
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What is the impact on our country?
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With the early summer weather in May, many people are worried about summer this year. There's talk of a super El Niño, and weather experts are already warning that the effects of a super El Niño could lead to unprecedented heat waves this summer. So, how will a super El Niño affect our country? Mabu News took a look at the historical data.
The above data are the annual precipitation data in our country. If you look at the graph, you can see that there are plus and minus bars drawn based on zero. Based on the amount of precipitation in a normal year, it shows how much more or less rain there was at that time compared to a normal year. This El Niño is likely to develop into a Super El Niño, so we brought the precipitation data from the time of the Super El Niño (5, 0, and 1982).
Normally, when El Niño arrives, there is a tendency to increase rainfall in July and August, mainly in the southern part of the country. Of course, you can't just say, "When El Niño comes, it always rains a lot in our country." Because the climate ocean mechanism is so complex... Looking at the historical data, it would be good to understand that this is the trend. Then, in September, we see a relative decrease in precipitation.
However, super El Niños tend to be different from normal El Niños. In the event of a super El Niño, the temperature increase is more pronounced in July and August than the increase in precipitation. As you can see from the graph above, all three years have seen less precipitation than normal during the summer months. Instead, if you look at early winter, when El Niño is at its peak, you see a tendency for precipitation to spike. There have only been three times when November has had more than twice as much rainfall as in a normal year, and all of those were during a super El Niño!
(The rest of the story is from the soup)
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