2023-05-17 17:19:44
Let us first turn to the data of Western scientists, published recently in Nature.
According to the authors of the article from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, an increase of 0.1 degrees corresponds to the expected warming of the ocean against the backdrop of global warming. However, it happened at least six months earlier.
That is, ocean warming was expected, but only after the manifestation of the El Niño climatic phenomenon, which usually brings warmer and wetter weather to the eastern part of the Pacific region. Thus, the ocean has already warmed, but will become even warmer. This, according to scientists, will create extreme weather conditions – heat waves that can be detrimental to both marine life and living organisms – from corals to whales.
“The coming year will be wild if El Niño really intensifies,” says Jet Propulsion Laboratory oceanographer Josh Willis.
Help “MK”. The El Niño Southern Oscillation is a natural cyclical climate event in the Pacific Ocean associated with a warming of the upper layer. The opposite phase of the “boy” El Niño (translated from Spanish – El Niño – “boy”) is the cooler La Niña (“girl”). They change each other on average, every 4 years. Currently, there is a neutral phase.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, the probability of developing El Niño between May and July is 60%, and by October it will increase to 80%.
If that happens, then according to oceanographers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwestern Fisheries Science Center, it could create a situation similar to that of 2013-2015 when the Blob heatwave hit.
It was not by chance that scientists remembered the Blob (blot), which “hit” in the northeast Pacific Ocean, massively exterminating fish, birds and other inhabitants of the ocean. The fact is that the average annual temperature of the ocean then rose by 0.4 degrees in 10 years. That is, the current rise falls short of that result by only three tenths of a percent. And we’re still waiting for El Niño…
In addition to the death of animals, scientists fear that the upcoming rise in temperature would provoke the same extensive bloom of harmful algae as it did 7-8 years ago, due to which the fishing industry in the region suffered significant losses.
Warm water is especially undesirable for corals. According to experts from the Australian University of New South Wales in Sydney, in recent years they have been regularly exposed to extreme temperatures, which leads to their discoloration and stunted growth.
Commentary by the leading researcher of Moscow State University. Lomonosov Alexey Eliseev:
– An increase in ocean temperature has indeed been recorded. This happens even without El Niño and is associated with the peculiarities of the circulation in the upper mixed layer of the Pacific Ocean (it is 10-20 meters). This layer is well heated by solar energy. Warming can also be influenced by synoptic conditions associated with the absence of clouds reflecting sunlight.
As for El Niño, which has not yet manifested itself… There is a theory that against the backdrop of global climate warming, the ocean will in the near future be in a state of permanent El Niño in the east or in the center of the equatorial region of the Pacific Ocean.
– That is, there will be no alternation with the cold La Nina phenomenon?
– Most likely, it will be, only at a different temperature level, this is a matter of definitions.
– Can the warming of the world ocean affect the melting of glaciers, the climate in Russia?
– It, apparently, will not have an effect on the melting of glaciers. As for the climate of Russia, there were several years ago work on the statistical calculation of the relationship between temperatures and precipitation in different regions. For us, this connection turned out to be very weak.
There was also work on the impact of El Niño on the flow of the Volga and Ural into the Caspian Sea. That is, it was studied whether dry phenomena are formed over their watershed. In fact, in a hot year, when the ocean temperature rose, the water in the rivers really becomes less, but the connection with El Niño still requires many years of observation.
Let’s move on to the “hot summer of 2023” in Moscow and in Russia as a whole, which some weather forecasters predict. Recall that several media outlets wrote at once that the heat in the upcoming season will be unprecedented, and all three months, that this has not happened for the last 150 years. Up to 40 degrees were promised to the Tula, Kursk and Belgorod regions, the Far East, Siberia and the Urals.
As explained in the Hydrometeorological Center of the Russian Federation, a summer with such extreme temperatures is unlikely, after all, Russia, especially its central part, is not the tropics. Our scientists do not like to throw words into the wind, and therefore, so far, they have given only a tentative forecast about warming: “The temperature in 2023 will be at the normal level or slightly above the norm, but the latter is estimated only with a probability of 60 percent.”
As for the current warming in the capital, its maximum is expected on Thursday, May 18, when the thermometer rises to +27 degrees. However, from Friday it will become cool again in Moscow – up to +20, no more. In the future, degrees will “grow” gradually, adding a degree every day, until Tuesday. Moreover, starting from Sunday, this process will be accompanied by short-term rains.
Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced on Wednesday May 17 that global temperatures would rise to record levels over the next five years. Heat-trapping greenhouse gases and the same natural El Niño phenomenon are cited as preconditions.
“There is a 66% chance that in at least one of the years between 2023 and 2027 the annual average global surface temperature will exceed pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius,” the bulletin said. “There is a 98% chance that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record.”
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