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Reuters
Reuters
Environment
By Kate Abnett

World could face record temperatures in 2023 as El Nino returns

A shepherd watches a fire burning a wheat field between Tabara and Losacio during the second heatwave of the year in the province of Zamora, Spain, July 18, 2022. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes

The world could breach a new average temperature record in 2023 or 2024, fuelled by climate change and the anticipated return of the El Nino weather phenomenon, climate scientists say.

Climate models suggest that after three years of the La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which generally lowers global temperatures slightly, the world will experience a return to El Nino, the warmer counterpart, later this year.

A woman speaks on a mobile phone as she walks through a market on a hot summer day in New Delhi, India, April 18, 2023. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

During El Nino, winds blowing west along the equator slow down, and warm water is pushed east, creating warmer surface ocean temperatures.

"El Nino is normally associated with record breaking temperatures at the global level. Whether this will happen in 2023 or 2024 is not yet known, but it is, I think, more likely than not," said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Climate models suggest a return to El Nino conditions in the late boreal summer, and the possibility of a strong El Nino developing towards the end of the year, Buontempo said.

A Palestinian woman fans her daughter with a tray amid a heatwave and lengthy power cuts in Gaza City, August 1, 2022. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

The world's hottest year on record so far was 2016, coinciding with a strong El Nino - although climate change has fuelled extreme temperatures even in years without the phenomenon.

The last eight years were the world's eight hottest on record - reflecting the longer-term warming trend driven by greenhouse gas emissions.

Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at Imperial College London's Grantham Institute, said El Nino-fuelled temperatures could worsen the climate change impacts countries are already experiencing - including severe heatwaves, drought and wildfires.

The sun rises in Cairo, Egypt, April 18, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

"If El Niño does develop, there is a good chance 2023 will be even hotter than 2016 – considering the world has continued to warm as humans continue to burn fossil fuels," Otto said.

EU Copernicus scientists published a report on Thursday assessing the climate extremes the world experienced last year, its fifth-warmest year on record.

Europe experienced its hottest summer on record in 2022, while climate change-fuelled extreme rain caused disastrous flooding in Pakistan, and in February, Antarctic sea ice levels hit a record low.

Corn plants affected by a long drought that finally ended this month by the arrival of rain is pictured in a farm in 25 de Mayo, in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, January 24, 2022. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian

The world's average global temperature is now 1.2C higher than in pre-industrial times, Copernicus said.

Despite most of the world's major emitters pledging to eventually slash their net emissions to zero, global CO2 emissions last year continued to rise.

(This story has been refiled to add the dropped word 'not' in paragraph 4)

(Reporting by Kate Abnett, editing by Deepa Babington)

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