The worst fears seem to be confirmed: the El Niño current will surely be the strongest since records of it have been recorded, starting in the 1950s, according to the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. This means that it has already broken the record of the 1997-1998 season , when its effects on the climate caused 20,000 deaths and losses valued at 97,000 million dollars.
The alarm was raised at the beginning of November, when experts found that temperatures in the central Pacific area were abnormally high. Two weeks ago, it was already 3.1 degrees Celsius above average. The foreseeable and feared consequence is increased rainfall, floods, droughts and other extreme events such as cyclones and tornadoes globally.
Furthermore, its effects, meteorologists warn, are amplified by climate change. In fact, El Niño is believed to be behind the disastrous monsoon delay this year, which caused 2,000 deaths in India. It is also blamed for the bleaching or loss of pigmentation of coral reefs in tropical seas, which is wreaking havoc on these ecosystems.
The El Niño current, which began its journey in March, occurs when masses of warm water move from northeastern Australia to the shores of the equatorial Pacific. If the temperatures are abnormally high, this prevents cold currents from rising to the surface of the oceans, which increases both the heat and the atmospheric humidity throughout the planet. So we are faced with what is known as the El Niño phenomenon. On the other hand, the stream is named in reference to the birth of Jesus , since it reaches the Peruvian and Ecuadorian coast around Christmas.
