Savoring February’s overly cool nights and days make for pleasant chill vibes.
Cozily pleasurable though are the vibes they are coming to a slow end; and with daylight hours steadily getting longer, faintly heard are the footsteps of summer.
Now, all there is left to do is wait for a kick-ass, steamy, and sweaty season.
Meanwhile, local weathermen inform us that the prolonged , which spawned havoc-causing above-normal rains in the past months, will likely end this month.
The present La Niña climate pattern has been in control of global weather for the past three years, the longest on record, becoming the first hat-trick La Niña of the 21st century.
Some climate experts argue this rarity of a stubborn La Niña, once taken together with rising global temperatures, means climate change is playing an increasingly pivotal role in influencing Pacific wind and water temperature patterns, or what is scientifically known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
La Niña, of course, did bring bouts of extreme weather but it also helped keep a lid on global temperatures.
This means that despite recent widespread heat waves and floods, we have actually been spared the worst of global heating in 2022.
Still, this ending of La Niña isn’t cheery news. In fact, it’s bad scary news.
The scary thing about this ending La Niña is the eventual transition to the better-known El Niño, the climate pattern which, more than anything else, makes the waters of the equatorial Pacific worryingly warmer.
Climate experts forecast a warmer El Niño climate pattern by the end of the year.
If El Niño does come, then the extreme weather which rampaged across our planet in 2021 and 2022 will pale in significance.
Still, the World Meteorological Organization says neutral conditions — meaning neither La Niña nor El Niño — will likely soon settle in, even if there is about a 60 percent chance La Nina will persist until March.
So, even if there remain questions on exactly when the world will reach the neutral state before it begins the trek to El Niño, hopes are high we’ll soon have normal climate conditions, perhaps to our temporary relief.
Nonetheless, anxious climate scientists say they’ll be busy. Using satellite technology, they’ll scour the Pacific for any anomalous warming water temperatures.
Climate scientists do dread the uncertainty of a warming Pacific, for a reason.
They are on edge primarily because any looming El Niño event will push global temperatures up by 1.5 degrees and beyond. Why is that important?
Well, keeping the world temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees was agreed upon by many countries in 2015, in Paris. If the world doesn’t keep to that agreement, then climate change will kill us all off.
As of today, the world’s temperature fluctuates from 1.14 to 2 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial period, says the WMO.
If you’re wondering why a few degrees of global warming matter, scientists say the best analogy is our body.
“Your normal body temperature is 36.6 degrees. Now (if) we have plus (1.2) degrees, we are already sick. And if we will have 1.5 or 2 degrees look at the difference. We cannot allow this,” one scientist told CNN last November.
At any rate, even if the looming El Niño won’t be as catastrophic as feared it could still temporarily breach the global temperature rise by about 1.5 degrees next year.
Should the 1.5 degrees limit on the global temperature be breached, even if temporarily, 2024 will likely be off the charts as the warmest year on record.
Still, whether or not things become hot enough for a full-fledged El Niño in 2024, in 2023, without La Niña’s cooling influence, we will also have a very good chance of being hot.
What all this means is that we can’t afford to be lethargic despite the lazy, balmy summer days ahead. We must plan and prepare before climate change unleashes the weather’s dark side.
Email: nevqjr@yahoo.com.ph