The Earth’s northern hemisphere is experiencing one of the most powerful heat waves on record. As if this were not enough, several NASA scientists have warned that we have not yet begun to notice the most important effects of the El Niño phenomenon, so there are many possibilities that next year will be even warmer.
And it is that, according to the climatologist and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Gavin Schmidt, it is a reality that climate change is increasing the temperature of the planet.
In addition, El Niño, this natural weather pattern that raises the temperature of the sea surface, has only just begun, so its impact is not yet having much of an impact on the extreme heat that a large part of the world’s population is suffering this summer.
“It actually just emerged, so what we’re seeing is not really due to El Niño,” Schmidt told reporters. “What we are seeing is general heat almost everywhere, especially in the oceans (…). The reason why we think this is going to continue is because we continue to introduce greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Until we stop doing so, temperatures will continue to rise,” he said.
Let us remember that last June was the hottest ever recorded on the planet, according to data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Union.
For Schmidt, there is a 50% chance that 2023 will be the warmest year ever recorded. However, it is very likely that 2024 will exceed it, precisely due to the influence of El Niño.
“We anticipate that 2024 is going to be an even warmer year because we are going to start with that El Niño phenomenon,” Schmidt argued. “It will reach its peak towards the end of this year, and its magnitude will have a great impact on the following year’s statistics,” he said.
Scientists have also expressed concern about the effects that climate change is having on the oceans. “The oceans have a fever,” said Carlos Del Castillo, head of NASA’s Ocean Ecology Laboratory.
“This ocean temperature issue is not a problem that stays in the ocean: it affects everything else,” Castillo said, explaining that higher ocean temperatures can lead to stronger hurricanes and the ultimate melting of glaciers.
