The US is looking at a year of chaotic weather

Summary

El Niño is a natural cycle of climate variability, usually concentrated in the tropical Pacific, that pushes heat from the ocean into the atmosphere and towards the western coast of the US. El Niño years are typically warm—an average El Niño can increase yearly global temperatures by 1.2° C. No one can predict for certain what impact, exactly, El Niño will have in the coming months. The phenomenon has a variety of effects on weather around the world. “It’s not always super consistent: Some areas get wetter, and some areas get drier,” says Hausfather. In the US, El Niño is generally associated with cooler and wetter conditions in the Southeast and Southwest with warmer conditions in western Canada and Alaska. This could be potentially good news for some areas in the Southwest that, following a parched summer due to lack of snowpack, need more water. But, says Swain, an El Niño event could also increase the chances of dry thunderstorms in some areas—which up the chance for wildfires from lightning in already-dry terrain. During the last strong El Niño event in 2016, heavy rain triggered mudslides in some areas of drought-stricken California. Heavy storms in areas affected by both wildfires and drought have been linked to increased likelihood of mudslides. “People talk about ‘climate chaos’—I don’t love the term in the context of climate change, because we still have a very structured climate,” says Swain. “But a very strong El Niño event really does induce chaos. It induces patterns that are very different from typical historical norms.” And there’s no denying that human-caused climate change is upping the ante for heat increases from natural events like El Niño. “Obviously, any El Niño event that happens is happening on top of human-caused climate change,” Hausfather says. “We’ve warmed the planet 1.4° [Celsius]. So you’re going to have a much bigger impact from heat, for example, if you start at that level versus 150 years ago.” This story originally appeared on Wir...