El Nino + Emissions = Our Toastiest Year Yet

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.


Today the U.K’s weather forecasting division (why can’t we have one of those?) released its projection that the one-two punch of El Niño and global warming could net the world’s warmest ever year on record.

Each January the Met Office issues a global forecast, which takes into account solar effects, El Niño, greenhouse gases concentrations and other multi-decadal influences. Over the previous seven years the annual global temperature forecasts have been right on, with a tiny error mean of just 0.06 °C.

This year the data says there’s a 60 percent chance that 2007 will be hotter than 1998, the current warmest year. The main factor behind the prediction is the onset last year of El Niño, a warming of the eastern Pacific’s equatorial waters that occurs every two to seven years.

Worldwide, the 10 warmest years since 1850 have all occurred in the past 12 years. And with every year of rising temperatures we are seeing species and ecosystems altered beyond their tipping points, with everything from jellyfish to African storks feeling the burn.

In 1998, global temperatures were 0.52 degrees above the long-term average, and this year, the Met Office’s central forecast is for them to be 0.54 degrees above the mean. The forecast explains that while the current El Niño effect — warming parts of the Pacific by between 1 and 3 degrees — isn’t as strong as the 1997-1998 pattern when the ocean warmed in parts by as much as 4 degrees, the signifincantly greater volume of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is likely to make 2007 warmer still than 1998.

Later this year the U.N.-created Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish its fourth assessment on changing weather patterns (and the first since 2001). The report will synthesize data and predictions from thousands of climate scientists from around the world, and offer critical information on climate change. We’ll see if President Bush finds it’s important enough to actually read.

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate