Meteorologists are forecasting a third consecutive year of La Niña. Some researchers say similar conditions could become more common as the planet warms.
An ongoing La Niña event that has contributed to flooding in eastern Australia and exacerbated droughts in the United States and East Africa could persist into 2023, according to the latest forecasts. The occurrence of two consecutive La Niña winters in the Northern Hemisphere is common, but having three in a row is relatively rare. A ‘triple dip’ La Niña — lasting three years in a row — has happened only twice since 1950.
More La Niña events would increase the chance of flooding in southeast Asia, boost the risk of droughts and wildfires in the southwestern United States, and create a different pattern of hurricanes, cyclones and monsoons across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as give rise to other regional changes.
The impacts are far reaching. “The tropical Pacific is huge. If you shift its rainfall, it has a ripple effect on the rest of the world,” says Michelle L’Heureux, a physical scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Prediction Centre in College Park, Maryland. During La Niña years, the ocean absorbs heat into its depths, so global air temperatures tend to be cooler.
The weird thing about it, says L’Heureux, is that this prolonged La Niña, unlike previous triple dips, hasn’t come after a strong El Niño, which tends to build up a lot of ocean heat that takes a year or two to dissipateThe big questions that remain are whether climate change is altering the ENSO, and whether La Niña conditions will become more common in future.
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