Surprisingly, El Nino is back, and now we tell you how the climate of 2023 can disturb Italy as well »ILMETEO.it

El Nino is ready to return next springAfter a few years of absence, she makes a surprise return A particular weather phenomenon known as El Nino. This is an assumption Scare Also Italy as the ongoing climate change impacts will add to this particular event, early next spring.

But what is it and why is it so important? La Niña alternates periodically with the opposite phenomenon, El Niño, occasionally punctuated by neutral conditions. Around large scale phenomena, It is observed on the surface of the tropical, central and eastern Pacific Ocean and is able to influence global weather and climatic conditions.

Experts call this difference ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation). The cycles that characterize this phenomenon have a duration of approximately 2 to 6/7 years.
there Nina Born in Nino They are respectively cooling and warming of the ocean surface. During the Niña episode, the water is about 1/3 of a degree cooler than normal, while in the Niño phases it is about 1/3 of a degree warmer.
The most troubling anomaly concerns exactly this aspect: in the latter Two years was La Niña To take control of the planetary landscape, according to the classical scheme, global temperatures must drop. Instead, the opposite happened. 2022 was the hottest year on record Since the weather data has been recorded.
This fact leads to a reflection that is by no means trivial: ongoing global warming, caused by human activities, now plays an important role to cancel out the effects of these formidable climatic mechanisms.

But the question arises: what will happen when the traces Global Warming (Global warming) will add up to those El Nino?
Meanwhile, what we do know is that NOAA, the US agency that deals with ocean and atmospheric dynamics, just announced that The surface waters of the Pacific Ocean are warming more than expected Gives way to the phenomenon known as El Nino. The map below confirms this anomaly with values ​​well above the climatic mean (colour red in the middle of the ocean, off the coast of South America).Pacific surface warming (red color)
We are talking about a phenomenon related to a very vast surface, practically the entire Pacific Ocean, which could contain some catastrophic consequences for the Earth’s climate.
Just think of the last intense episode of El Niño, in 2015/16 ocean waters exceeded average by +3°C. This huge amount of heat was then transferred to the atmosphere, with the Earth’s temperature increasing and climate changes in almost every part of the world: you’ll remember very hot values ​​forSummer 2015which went down in history as the third hottest in Italy since the temperature record.

direction – After two years with the La Niña system, we will meet as soon as possible fountain to a strong warming of the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Statistically, El Niño is associated with a Greater hurricane activity of African originwhich tends to expand in Italy and Europe in the spring-summer period.
the effects More immediate result in Long-lasting heat waves peaking at 40°Cdrought (particularly in the center and south), and weather extremes, due to the increased potential energy involved (higher temperature = more evaporation = more moisture in the air).