Extreme El Niño expected to wreak havoc on weather this year

The bad boy of global weather is on its way. El Niño can cause floods, droughts, fires and epidemics around the world, and the next one could be a humdinger.

El Niño crashes on to the scene once every four years or so as hot water emerges in the Pacific and moves towards the Americas. This can bring drought to Australia and parts of Asia, while parts of the Americas experience heavy rain, flooding and outbreaks of waterborne diseases. Pacific Islands all the way from Tonga to Hawaii experience more frequent storms. And valuable fish stocks move all around the globe, following water of their preferred temperature.

Many experts are warning of a "super El Niño" this time round. "We have this enormous heat in the subsurface that is propagating eastward and it's just about to come to the surface," says Axel Timmermann of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. "I looked at the current situation and I thought, 'oh my dear'."


[link to www.newscientist.com]