El Niño comes stronger in 2024? See heat and rain forecasts

São Paulo, 1st – The year 2024 is expected to be even hotter than 2023, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), as a result of ongoing climate change coupled with the occurrence of the El Niño phenomenon, warming the waters of the Pacific , which will last until mid-year.

New temperature records were broken in many places around the world – including Brazil – amid the heat waves recorded in 2023. According to the new report from the WMO, an agency of the United Nations (UN), these events represented the beginning of the collapse climate. As El Niño is only expected to dissipate between April and June 2024, new heat waves can be expected.

According to a WMO report signed by the organization's director general Petteri Taalas, the main factor behind the increase in temperatures is global warming, but El Niño “has an impact on global temperatures, especially in the year following its formation, in this case, 2024.”

“As a result of record surface and ocean temperatures since June, 2023 is expected to be the hottest year on record to date, but next year is forecast to be even hotter.”

In Brazil, in addition to heat waves and rising temperatures, El Niño can cause changes in the rainfall regime, causing new droughts and intense droughts, especially in the Northeast and North, and above-normal rainfall in the South, for example than has already occurred in 2023. Furthermore, forest fires in the Cerrado and Amazon may occur more frequently.

Municipalities affected

Because of the phenomenon, in 2023, more than half of the 5,568 Brazilian municipalities were affected by some extreme weather event, such as storms, floods and droughts. According to the National Secretariat for Civil Protection and Defense, 2,797 municipalities were recognized as being in an emergency situation or state of public calamity. In total, 14,541,438 people were affected and R$1.4 billion was spent on damage containment.

The beginning of the year was marked by intense rain and flooding on the coast of São Paulo, which left 64 people dead and resulted in the closure of the Rio-Santos Highway. Extratropical cyclones hit the southern region of the country in June, leaving 49 people dead and more than a hundred municipalities affected, especially in Rio Grande do Sul. Also in Rio Grande do Sul, a strong drought led to an emergency situation in 252 municipalities. In the North region, 100 municipalities recorded water shortages due to the historic drought.

The increase in the planet's temperature is expected to exceed the symbolic mark of 1.5ºC above the average recorded before the Industrial Revolution from 2024 onwards. In 2023, marked by heat waves and several temperature records, the global average was 1.4ºC above the pre-industrial mark. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, signatory countries committed to trying to keep the increase in temperatures due to climate change below 1.5ºC. Scientists have been warning that an increase of more than 1.5ºC would trigger a cascade of catastrophic impacts for the planet, potentially irreversible.

According to the WMO warning, the mark will be reached at least once in the next five years. Although it is not yet a permanent increase, it represents an acceleration of human impacts on the global climate system and launches humanity into “uncharted territory”, according to the UN agency.

Average temperature

According to WMO data, 2023 will be the hottest year on record, with an average increase of 1.4ºC, beating the previous records of 2016, with an increase of 1.29ºC, and 2020, with an increase of 1.27ºC. .

“We cannot make an exact forecast, but if in 2024 we will have El Niño conditions for part of the year, we have to prepare,” said climatologist Karina Lima, a researcher at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. “Regardless of the El Niño, which is a contributing factor, global warming is the main factor and continues to escalate. We know that, in a warmer world, the general trend is for an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events.”