The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
WMO Presser 03 May 2023
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21:52
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MP4
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1.3 GB
STORY: WMO- EL Niño update
TRT: 01’41”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
RELEASE DATE: 03 May 2023
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Wide shot of podium, speakers, conference room, Palais des Nations, Geneva
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Wilfran Moufouma Okia, Head of WMO regional climate prediction services division, World Meteorological Organization (WMO): “The next few months from May to July, we have a 60% chance to enter into an El Niño phase. This likelihood will increase to 70% if we look at the period from July to August and even to 80% if we go past August. But of course, beyond, we can't say much. That's where we are. Of course, this will change the weather and climate pattern worldwide.”
- Wide shot, laptop screen in foreground with podium, speakers and monitor in background, conference room, Palais des Nations
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Wilfran Moufouma Okia, Head of WMO regional climate prediction services division, World Meteorological Organization (WMO): “The warmest year was 2016, according to our report. So we are expecting in the coming two years to have a serious increase in the global temperature.”
- Wide shot: camera person, tripod
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Clare Nullis World Meteorological Organization (WMO): “We just had the eight warmest years on record and three of those were La Niña years. So this just gives you an indication of the climate context we're in.”
- Wide shot: podium and speakers, technicians in background
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH): Wilfran Moufouma Okia, Head of WMO regional climate prediction services division, World Meteorological Organization (WMO): “The state of the ocean is the warmest and we are currently in the so-called neutral phase of the El Niño oscillation whereby basically we left the state of the La Niña, and we are moving toward a different state.”
- Medium shot: speakers at podium, conference room
- Close up: camera
- Medium shot: journalist typing
- Wide shot: camera operator, podium
"World should prepare for El Nino development, associated with increased heat and drought", says WMO
The El Niño weather pattern is likely to develop later this year and could contribute to rising global temperatures, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday at a news briefing at the United Nations in Geneva.
This would have the opposite impacts on weather and climate patterns in many regions of the world than the three-year period of La Niña that just ended and which often lowers global temperatures.
“The next few months from May to July, we have a 60% chance to enter into an El Niño phase. This likelihood will increase to 70% if we look at the period from July to August and even to 80% if we go past August. But of course, beyond, we can't say much,” said Wilfran Moufouma Okia, Head of WMO’s regional climate prediction services division. “Of course, this will change the weather and climate pattern worldwide.”
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern associated with warming of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It occurs on average every two to seven years, and episodes usually last nine to 12 months.
“The warmest year was 2016, according to our report. So, we are expecting in the coming two years to have a serious increase in the global temperature,” reported Mr. Okia.
According to WMO’s State of the Global Climate reports, 2016 is the warmest year on record because of the “double whammy” of a very powerful El Niño event and human-induced warming from greenhouse gases.
“We just had the eight warmest years on record and three of those were La Niña years. So, this just gives you an indication of the climate context we're in,” said Clare Nullis, WMO’s spokesperson, quoting WMO’s Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas.
According to WMO’s Professor Taalas, the world should prepare for the development of El Niño, which is often associated with increased heat, drought or rainfall in different parts of the world. It might bring relief from the drought in the Horn of Africa and other La Niña- related impacts but could also trigger more extreme weather and climate events.
“The state of the ocean is the warmest and we are currently in the so-called neutral phase of the El Niño oscillation whereby basically we left the state of the La Niña, and we are moving toward a different state,” said WMO’s Wilfran Moufouma Okia.
El Niño and La Niña are major – but not the only - drivers of the Earth’s climate system.
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Teleprompter
OK, good morning everybody.
It's 10 AM so we will start.
Thanks to you NTV as always for for hosting us making this possible.
WMO, as you know, we issue regular updates on El Nino and La Nina.
We've issued a new one this morning given that there's been quite a lot of media interest there.
That's why I, you know, decided to hold this, this small press briefing.
You should have copies of it in all languages.
The press release has been translated in all languages.
This press briefing will be in English, but we can take questions in French.
So without any further ado, I'll present you to Doctor Wilfran Mufruma Okya.
He's head of WMO Regional Climate Prediction Services Division, so he works in our climate on our climate team.
So he will speak to you briefly about about the update, about what this means and then we can take questions.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for having me.
I'm pleased to report the key finding of the latest report from the World Meteorological Organisation regarding the El Nino, La Nina phenomena.
First of all, just to provide some context, I just want to indicate that El Nino and La Nina are naturally occurring phenomena that can affect a large part of the globe at different time scale.
Normally on scale of few months to a year, La Nina and El Nino are two alternate process of phenomena which occur in the sort of irregular cycle.
Now with this in mind, what the report, our finding from this report are indicating first the long multi year state of La Nina we've been in since 2020 is now over.
So according to the meteorological observation, according to the expertise, according according to the science, the state of the ocean is warming and we are currently in the so-called neutral phase of the El Nino oceation, whereby basically we left the state of the La Nina and we are moving toward a different state.
That's what as of today.
Now in terms of where we're heading to, so according to our tools which is essential, which are essentially the best available model science and knowledge, the next few months from May to July, we have a 60% chances to enter into a nelinear phase.
This likelihood will increase to 70% if we look at the period from July to August and even to 80% if we go past August.
But of course, beyond, we can't say much.
That's where we are now.
So of course this will change the weather and climate pattern worldwide compared to what we had during the La Nina phase.
In general, when we think about El Nino, we have region which are traditionally affected by by El Nino.
An example for instance is over Australia and the South Asia is normally correspond to a drought.
Over South of the United States we normally have flood and so forth.
So the pattern of weather and climate will be affected widely.
Now what we need to pay more attention on is that if we think of of La Nina as a sort of break in the warming engine, because La Nina correspond to a cooling of the ocean, which normally should kind of slow down the rise of temperature, El Nino will fuel the temperature globally.
Now in the past, the way we felt the effect of El Nino was with a delay.
So basically, if we remember the 2015, 2016, 2014, 2015 La Nina, El Nino event, the warmest year was the 2016, according to our report.
So we are expecting in the coming 2 year to have a serious increase in the global temperature.
Now there are a couple of things we need to be paying attention on is that of course we are we need to continue monitor the state of the ocean.
But what is really important is that the information we provide need to be disseminated with the help of our member, meaning all the country taking part to the WMO community because this country need to be able to detail the impact of the El Nino at the country level.
So we'll continue to work together with the country and we will continue to monitor the situation because the information of El Nino need to be updated as we go along because as you can imagine, we are able to clearly indicate the evolution of the phenomena in the coming few months, but beyond it's becoming very difficult.
So we will have, we'll need to update the information every month as we go along.
So I will pause here and if you have a question, I will be pleased to take all the question you have.
Thank you very much.
Many thanks.
If you could, there's not many people in the room, but there's a lot of people following online.
So if you could just raise, raise your hand in the in the chat, please, if if you wish to ask a question, any questions, I'm not seeing that.
Why am I not seeing this?
Hello.
OK, All right.
Yeah, Sorry, I'm in the chat now.
OK.
Yes, sorry about that.
OK, so and if you could just introduce yourself, please, with your media affiliation.
So, Gabrielle.
Hello, thank you for the briefing.
I was just wondering if there were.
Any.
Estimates in terms for murders news agency, Just was wondering if WMO had any estimates in terms of the temperature that could actually the number of degrees that could be caused by by this El, the return to El Nino, the possible return of El Nino this summer if you had some kind of estimate regarding global temperatures in terms of degrees.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your question.
So far we don't have a global estimate of the expected temperature, but just an example, last year with La Nina we had we saw some squatting temperature in many places of the world.
So what WMO is trying to do is that in addition to the information regarding El Nino, La Nina event, we developed a product called the Global Seasonal Climate Outlook update, which is essentially a way to incorporate all the different driver of the climate viability because El Nino is 1 And in this exercise we try to find out the likely temperature in different parts of the world for the coming three to six months.
So basically we are an indication of the temperature in some region, but globally we will have to wait after the the event over.
And maybe if you just want to address the typically El Nino plays out on global temperatures in the second year, do you want to maybe say something on that?
So thank you.
So basically El Nino seem to have a kind of lagging impact of the global temperature.
So if we recall the 2014, 2015 El Nino event, what we realised a year later in 2016, we had the oldest year ever recorded for that period of time.
So basically we feel we feel the effect of El Nino on temperature globally with a slight delay.
So again, we will have to to wait the situation to to to happen.
And just to add to that, hopefully in the next couple of weeks, the World Meteorological Organisation will be issuing an update based on predictions from the UK's Met Office on the temperatures in the for the coming five years.
So we hope that will be in the week of the 15th of May.
So you'll have more information then.
So.
Nina Larsen from the French news agency AFP.
Hi, thank you for taking my question.
I was hoping you could give.
I was looking for specific, the sort of specific time frames for the previous 2 El Nino events, if you could sort of say when they began and when they ended.
And also, I mean, I understand that the one around or before the 2016 record temperatures was exceptionally strong and I think the one around 2018 or so was, was pretty weak.
I'm just wondering if if there's if there's any pattern to how frequently there are strong.
And weak.
El Nino events and if we should if we should expect global temperatures to rise even if this one doesn't turn out to be particularly strong.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for raising this question.
Yes, we in term of the year when we declare, we declare a new event.
So if we pick the example of the 20/14/2016, we monitor the evolution of the temperature because different region will have different interests depending on the vicinity of the the event.
So basically we can we try to monitor the evolution of the C surface temperature throughout the year.
So the the fact that we have a Nino sign in some region indicates simply that the temperature is rising and we need to be watching the situation carefully in term of indicating the year.
Because as you know the El Nino like El Nino start normally in early spring and it peaks at later in the year.
So depending on the the impact, the way we declare the year may vary for region.
For region, we didn't have any clear statement on the start of El Nino in the in the 2014, 2016, although we noticed that was one of the strongest El Nino however and the the second one in 2018-2019 was weak.
But again, we monitor the evolution of the temperature throughout the year.
And as our Secretary general, Professor Tallis said a couple of weeks ago in this room, we just had the 8 warmest years on record, and three of those were Wolanina years.
So this just gives you an indication of the, you know, the context, the climate context.
We're we're in.
And now FA Antonio, please.
Thank you.
So.
What does the?
Coming of El.
Nino mean.
For the climate of Latin America in the coming.
Months.
What extreme weather?
Events could it bring and which countries?
Of the region, do you think could be more affected by those?
Extreme climate events.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your question of South America.
We have, if you like, 2 type of information.
We have the past, what happened in the past, something we call the climatological effect of El Nino.
If we look at the past behaviour so of South America, you have normally somewhere in a large part of the Amazonia North East of South America drought.
Elsewhere there are some slight signal of flood but according to the latest output from the WMO centre or leading centre, we have some slight indication of drug situation of northeast of South America.
But again we are confident in the next three months.
But again we need to check the simulation as they go along because this the phenomenon has just started.
So we need to monitor carefully the the evolution and also to check our precision.
OK.
And so we'll move on to the next question, Christian Erich from the German news agency DPA.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for the briefing.
I have two questions.
One is maybe a language question.
You're saying the likelihood of this developing in the period, I think August, September is 80%.
Does that mean we are not sure?
We are just 80% sure that it's developing.
Is there a day in the year when, when you will declare now we are 100% sure and if you had started or not, I'm just not sure what these percentages mean.
And I would like to know what the percentage was before now it's 80% for the July, August.
Has this risen from a previous prediction for that?
And sorry, normally it's it develops at the end of the year.
Is that correct?
Or do we, can we say Elinio has started now?
I mean it's called Elinio because it was discovered around Christmas, right?
So I thought it always developed at the end of the year.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your question.
So that's a very good one.
So essentially, we need to distinguish 2 parts, what we observe meaning where we stand now.
So the observation is LED is, is indicating that the situation currently is in a neutral phase.
So that's what we have of today.
Now what our tool are trying to do is to anticipate what will come in the future.
So we declare when we observe with the measurement, we can say we are El Nino or not, right?
That today we are in the neutral phase.
Now our tool are trying to anticipate what will come in the next three months, next six months.
So what we are saying in the next three months, so from May to July, we are 60% sure that we will have El Nino.
In July to August we are 70% sure and in later we are 80% sure.
Actually the likelihood is increasing, we are more certain.
I hope this answer to your question.
Do you want to address the the Spring predictability barrier?
So also one important fact to note here, because of the way the climate system behave, we can't provide forecast long in advance because in spring we have a an area called the Spring barrier where we have a lot of a certainty.
So what will what will happen?
So as we go along, we repeat the same simulation to make sure that the outcome is still the same.
So basically that's maybe the the the challenge for the scientific community is that we can't give a forecast, a prediction of a Linu 2 years in advance.
So we need to update our simulation as we evolve in the in time over and.
The the question on it developing near Christmas because you know the the the the Christian.
Your final question was that from what I understood that because Al Nino was named after the boy child, does it normally develop near Christmas?
Yeah, I understood that it does develop near Christmas.
And I wonder whether this 6070 or 80%, does it refer to we will have an Alineo sometime in the next few months or does that mean we already have it now or we have it in July or in August?
Yes, thank you again.
So what it means, as you clearly indicated, we will have a menu in July, August with 60, in May, July with 60% chances, in July, August with 70% chances and in August, September with 80% chances.
Now we are in a neutral phase, meaning we are in between the two.
And just to follow up on that, the WMO members, which are the national meteorological and Hydrological services who are responsible for, you know, issuing the forecasts, you know, in their own country, the individual ones and thinking of the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia, for example, they will have a category, you know, an El Nino watch El Nino alert and you know, they, you know, they will, you know, then declare that, yes, you know, we have, we haven't, we have an El Nino event started.
So, you know, obviously all our members are monitoring it and WMO is is monitoring it as well.
Nina, your, your hand is still up.
Do you want to ask another question?
Yes, I had a follow up from my previous question which wasn't, I don't think I got a response to part of the question which was on whether a weak L Nino.
If this, I understand that we don't really know yet if this is going to be weaker or strong, but whether a weak L Nino would also significantly impact temperatures.
And I also had a question about the cooling impact of La Nina over the past couple years.
How how big has that been?
Do you have an estimate of that and how much higher do you have any estimate of how much higher world temperatures would have been without it?
Thank you.
Thank you again for the question.
So if I understand correctly, you are asking whether we have an estimate of our big will be the the global temperature with El Nino case.
And again, he I think we we can only have some not estimate, but indication because what we know for sure is that La Nina years like the one which just ended had a very **** temperature.
That's a situation where usually the La Nina serve as a sort of break in in in a warming machine.
So if the temperature of the the the ocean are warming fueling the global temperature, we are likely to, again, that's something to need to be checked, likely to have a temperature higher than what we had this year.
But again, that's something we will see as we move on throughout the time.
Nina, you wanted to follow up?
Yeah.
Sorry, just to clarify, I was wondering if there's any estimate of how much lending at cooled temperatures and what what global temperatures would have been without lending you?
It's a it's a difficult one because what we know for sure is that with the global warming, we have a kind of trend of having the neutral face warming.
So basically La Nina here are becoming warmer and warmer than before.
So again, this is because in the background we have the climate change, the global warming.
So again we will have and remember WMO every year produce the state of the climate, which provides the estimate of the warming globally.
So again for us, we will wait till the end of the year when we will collect all the measurements from all the member and come up with a clear picture.
So we can't anticipate.
But again, at the end, we will provide a refined number of the warning.
OK.
I can't see any more hands up.
So unless anybody's got any last question, thank you very much indeed for for joining us today.
If you've got any follow up questions, please, please contact me.
Thanks very much indeed and thank you to you and TV.
Thank you.