"There is a huge pool of very warm ocean waters that will fuel the intensity of El Nino- stronger than anything since our monitoring began, so literally off the charts. September to November, there is a clear signature of El Nino in the tropical Pacific region; we expect the impacts to stay beyond even 2027 to 2028" Read & watch: l El Nino 2026 and climate update by UN World Meteorological Organization Sep 3 TRANSCRIPT below
TRANSCRIPT
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Good morning everyone. I'm very pleased to welcome you to this press briefing where the World Meteorological Organization will present findings from our latest El Nino update which we issued this morning along with the global seasonal climate update for the next quarter. You should have received these updates and the press release in UN languages. My name is Nandita Surendran and I'm the chief of communications at WMO. I'll be your moderator today. WMO has been issuing the El Nino La Nina updates for nearly 30 years now. This is an authoritative seasonal forecast that brings together the world's leading experts and scientists. In June, you will remember we called for the world to prepare for an El Nino. Today, we will provide the latest information on its forecast evolution and likely impacts. [This blog posts transcripts because videos can disappear but the digital printed word lasts forever.] I'm delighted to welcome our two speakers today who'll take us through where we are and what we can expect to see. Celestee Saulo is the secretary general of WMO and Wilfren Moumoufouma-Okia is the chief of the climate prediction section also at WMO. After our speakers finish, we will of course take your questions. So, Celestee, over to you. C: Thank you very much Nandita and dear members of the media. I am pleased to be with you today for the release of the new World Meteorological Organization El Nino update and thank you very much for your interest. WMO Leninia updates are the world's most authoritative source of information for governments and decision makers. They are based on a consensus models from WMO global producing centers, climate prediction centers and experts from national meteorological and hydraological services around the world. These forecasts show an exceptionally high likelihood of nearly 100% that El Nino will persist through to February 2027. Nearly 100%. This is the first time that we expressed such a degree of certainty. El Nino is firmly established in the tropical Pacific. Sea surface temperatures in the region are already well above average and are continuing to rise. Subsurface ocean temperatures are also exceptionally high and in some areas more than 8° Celsius [46.4 degrees Fahrenheit] above normal during July and early August. This means that there is a huge pool of very warm ocean waters that will fuel the intensity of El Nino. the WMO update shows El Nino has strengthened and will continue as a very strong event, even exceptionally strong. If this trajectory continues, it may be stronger than anything since our monitoring began. So literally off the charts we have used for the past four decades. El Nino will peak towards the end of 2026, but the impacts will be felt long after that, including on global temperatures. The powerful 2023 2024 Elino contributed to 2024 being the warmest year on record. We should not be surprised if this record is broken. WMO will be closely monitoring global temperatures in the months ahead. Why does this matter? El Nino means the [inaudible] high because it was first noticed by Peruvian fishermen around Christmas time. It sounds small and innocent, but this El Nino will deliver a major blow to communities, economies, and supply chains across the globe. So many sectors will be affected. Agriculture, trade, fisheries, health, energy, transport, water resources, disaster management to name but a few. We are already seeing disruption and devastation from droughts and floods and extreme weather. We expect these impacts to multiply and cascade as El Nino intensifies. This exceptional enino demands exceptional preparation and response. Seasonal forecasts such as the mo updates provide a vital window of opportunity. We have no time to lose. What are we doing? 5.00 WMO has launched an unprecedented mobilization with national meteorological and hydrological services who are on the front line of delivering the forecast and services to save lives and livelihoods. We are also working closely with partners across the United Nations and humanitarian system. WMO is part of core UN team with the UN office of disaster risk reduction and the food and agriculture organization working with UN country teams in managing risk associated with the 2026 2027 El Nino episode while identifying opportunities for building resilience. The WMO coordination mechanism is providing tailored expertise to this humanitarian sector. Coordination and commitment are essential. In Africa the African Union has called for a collective response. Preparedness for El Nino will be one of the focuses of the Africa Early Warnings Forum taking place this week in Addis Ababa. For example, the Tanzania Meteorological Agency has a nationwide awareness campaign, bridging agriculture and food security sector, railways and roads, disaster managers, and the general public. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, UN partners are rolling out preparedness plans in countries traditionally hard hit by Elino. Anticipatory action plans include cash assistance, drought and flood resistance seats, livestock protection, and flood protection measures. Panama has declared a national state of emergency to mobilize the spending on preventive and response measures. In parallel, the Panama Canal Authority has implemented water saving operations as part of wider measures to strengthen water sustainability. Peru has declared a state of emergency across 40% of the country for flooding and landslides. In Asia, national meteorological and hydrological services in some countries are advising decision makers about the risk of below normal rains. India convened a high level interministerial review of El Nino preparedness involving agriculture, health, water, power and economic agencies. Singapore is strengthening protection against extreme heat through both worker safety rules and a national heat wave response plan. Nations in the Pacific are geared up for an above average tropical cyclone season. WMO will be showcasing more examples of proactive planning in the coming weeks. I've said this before and I'll tell this again. El Nino does not have to be a recipe for disaster. We have the forecast, the foresight to save lives and protect livelihoods. Today we are issuing a call to action. The science is clear. We have the knowledge and tools to prevent El Nino related hazards becoming a crisis. Let us join together and ensure that we leave nobody behind. Thank you. N- Thank you Celestee. Wilfren over to you. W- Thank you very much. Good morning everyone. Thank you very much Madame Secretary General and Nandita. I would like to build on the statement made by the secretary general of the world mythological organization and try to provide some insight on the report we issued today. The message of the report is clear. So El Nino is firmly established. It has strengthened rapidly over the past month and there is an exceptionally high precedent for this event to persist through the end of the year and into early 2027. There is also another equally important message rom this report is that the high confidence in the El Nino forecast doesn't mean certainty on its impact; the impact depend on many other process and element I will distinguish in a few minutes. but let me start with where we have observed since the onset of the event which occurred around April. So El Nino has strengthened rapidly. If we take one of the key indicator we use to monitor the evolution of El Nino which is the sea surface temperature anomaly in the central and the eastern part of the tropical Pacific- 10.03 -in a region we call the Nino 3.4 region, this region has seen a marked increase of sea surface temperature anomaly and we are talking about a value ranging from plus 1.5° C to two degree two degree Celsius in May July and those values have increased further in August reaching up to two plus 2.6 six degree. But what is striking is that the warming is not confined to the sea surface. There is a large reservoir of heat beneath the surface and in some places we measure value around plus 8 degrees. [1.5 C equals 34.7 F ] : So this is striking. In short what we can say is that the sea surface warming the subsurface ocean heat content and the atmospheric circulation are singing the same song and this gives us confidence to say that El Nino is firmly established and has strengthened rapidly. What comes next? So our forecast indicates a near 100% probability for this event to persist in September, November and remain active up to February 2027. This is an exceptionally strong forecast signal we have never seen before. But let me be clear here. The strong 100% probability simply mean that we have an exceptionally high confidence for this event to persist. It doesn't mean that we have a 100% probability for a flood, a drought or even a heat wave to occur in a given country. If you were to put in term of the magnitude of the event all our models are indicating the same trouble. So there is a broad agreement to say that the El Nino event will be classified as a very strong event meaning it will have a magnitude or above plus 2° C and it will peak as you heard from the secretary general later in the end of the year. However, what is less certain is the magnitude of the peak and the timing. To give you an idea, our forecast indicate on the average a magnitude of plus 3.6. Let's be clear again here. The strength of the Elino peak doesn't imply anything on the severity of the impact which depend on where you are, the time of the year, the way the Elino phenomenon will play out with other climate driver and plus other nonclimatic processes like vulnerability or exposure. Now the next thing we can say before I conclude is that in complement to the update on El Nino WMO to kind of provide a full picture of the climatic driver of the change. We complement the El Nino update with the global seasonal climate update which is essentially a seasonal climate outlook which tries to integrate all the possible climate drivers worldwide. If we look at the message coming for this outlook, if I pick randomly the rainfall, what we can see clearly is that there is for the period September to November, there is a clear signature of El Nino in the tropical Pacific with a regional contrast. the probability favor I will say wetterr than normal condition over the greater horn of Africa over some part of South America and at the same time the probability also favors drier than normal condition over Indian India subcontinent Southeast Asia and the mountain continent Australia northern part of South America Central America and the Caribbean. And in terms of temperature, what we can also say is that the probability favors above an average temperature in most of in a large proportion of land area. 15.00 But in concluding what I would like to stress here is that the value of forecast lies is the lead time to anticipate or to take action. We can certainly not prevent Ell Nino from happening. But with better observation, better forecast, better early warning system and even better climate services, we can equip our governments with the intelligence they need to mitigate the risk of El Nino. Furthermore, our national med services, the regional climate outlook forum, the regional climate center are the authoritative place where we need to turn to to try to translate the global information we provided today into regional and national guidance. Thank you very much. N- Thank you, Wilfrin, we are now open for questions. Bianca, please. Q Okay. Thank you very much. Here, Bianca H from Global TV Brazil. Secretary General, one of the maps showed the contrast in Brazil like the possibility of severe rain in the north and norththeast and also the drought in the north and northeast and extreme rainfall in the south. Do you believe that emerging countries like Brazil are prepared or have we already crossed the line where even scientific warnings and early alerts won't be enough to prevent humanitarian disasters and economic economic disasters and more specific about if you can talk a little bit more specific on Brazil and beyond this humanitarian strategies. What scale of economic impact does the WMO fear for the region for Brazil? Thanks a lot. C Well, thank you for your question and yes indeed, Brazil is one of the specific countries and the signals are clear towards the dry conditions in the northeast and the wetter conditions in the southeast and certainly Brazil is a very well prepared country. they have a strong med service and also strong academic community and I mention both because it's about monitoring it's about forecasting but also about understanding the impacts as as you said Brazil may be exposed in the northern part issues on water hydropower and Brazil is severely well depends a lot on hydropower and in south this flooding possibilities can of course affect food but having this information in advance and I know that Brazil uses it- carefully; helps the country to prepare much better and I think that Brazil is putting in place several measures as other countries in the region. Usually when we speak from the UN perspective we tend to concentrate more on the more vulnerable countries in the world, least developed world, small island developing states. That does not mean that we don't care about the the developing world but certainly the elements are in place for Brazil to take early action and I'm sure that that is being the case as it is in many other countries in South America. N Yeah, if you could just explain like for ordinary people what impacts we could feel there for example with the crops with the energy or yeah if you can just give some examples of impact. C Well, as my colleague Wilfran already expressed, we cannot be certain about what impact when and where exactly. But when you see a picture like the one we are sharing with a below normal precipitation in northeast Brazil, you expect of course impacts in agriculture. And how do you prepare? Well, you make different decisions in terms of what seeds you will plant. You will plant seeds that are capable of supporting less rain. and and these are the type of decisions you take ahead and and when you have hydropower and depend on hydropower you will use your reservoirs to manage your availability of energy. 20.00 So this is the type of h impacts and decision making associated with having this information in advance. Thank you. Over to you. Q Thank you Robin Millard from AFP. You say this could be the strongest El Nino since the records began. What is it that you are seeing in the data that gives you the certainty to be able to make that prediction and secondly if we know that El Nino is going to persist into February 2027 can you speak a bit more about what will happen after February 2027 what what are the impacts of El Nino for the rest of the year? W Thank you very much for your question. If I take the first part, which is what gives us the confidence that this El Nino very strong El Nino will stand in the high end of the historical record. There is a slide basically if we looked through the observation from what we had in terms of the magnitude of strong and very strong El Nino event and if we overlay the forecast, we can only speak about for forecast now, we see that the forecast stands out in that picture but of course it will depend on the peak. I think when we will reach the peak, we will measure the value and we can confirm or disregard the the forecast. That's the first part. The second question you asked was regarding what happens after February. Essentially what the report we provided today is the outcome of an exercise of seasonal forecasting. By seasonal meaning we forecast for the next season up to four months. So what will happen from every month we will update our forecast to extend the lead. I suspect when we reach February we will have forecast for the upcoming season and they will provide some information of where we are moving to. Thank you. Q But we can we can expect the knock-down effects of El Nino to have an impact on the temperature in 2027 for example. C Yes. If I can complement that. Yes. Because that is a very coherent signal and that's something that we also experienced in 2024 as I mentioned at the beginning. So with a strong El Nino we know that we will have temperatures above normal almost everywhere. So as a result we expect that the the world mean temperature will be higher than in previous years. That is what we expect globally on average. But to also to speak about the impacts beyond February 2027, we have a a nice report that we have prepared together with other UN agencies showcasing for example this is just an example but if in South Africa you expect less rain than normal, that will immediately affect the agricultural sector but then a couple of months later you will also be affecting the hydro power and the energy generation and the water availability; and as a result you may also be feel the compromising to your next season and and that is how we expect the the El Nino impacts to to stay beyond even 2027 to 2028 and that will depend on how each country can adapt their decision making not to be so exposed to this water shortage in the case of South Africa and and I think that these are the type of examples we should follow closely. N Thank you. Okay, one final question from the room and then we have a couple of questions from online. Okay. Q Mr. Muama, you said that a 100% of a strong nino doesn't mean 100% of disasters or 100% of droughts or or catastrophic rainfalls. But normal people could make a correlation between a strong very strong El Nino 25.00 And what they have lived in past El Ninos I mean floods and all type of disasters. So how could you explain better that to the people that and the fact that the people has not to be flooded by fear of what is coming. And secondly I would also like to ask about the heat wave that we have lived in Europe this year. Is this heat any correlation with El Nino? And if the temperatures will be for sure globally will increase next year, could we expect another heat wave in Europe? Thank you. W Thank you very Thank you very much for your question. I'll start with your third question regarding the distinction between El Nino and the impact. Put it simply El Nino changes the odds the probability of climate condition. It is not a forecast of storm or a forecast of heat wave. Right? So it changes that's the global picture. Now I think it's interesting to try to explain to the general public that for us to have a a detailed picture of the impact of El Nino we need to collaborate broadly we bring the national med services we bring the sector concern to try to refine the information so we are providing the global guidance, but the details will come from the ground from the country that's part of the question and you also mentioned the question regarding the heat wave, of course the heat wave in Europe is not related to to to to Elino. we had a dome located somewhere in Europe but what we can just draw a parallel. What we are expecting is that over the coming months, temperatures will raise above the average almost everywhere we can imagine, and if it wil occur again, we will be in a very difficult situation; but the link is not firmly established. Okay. End of transcription for this blog post *** From Associated Press Politics News
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To me, this press event was not as provocative as I expected it to be. All day long today there have been news reports on the sites I watch about this UN announcement that the El Nino is going to be more intense and longer this season because the planet and oceans are already over heated. Wilhelm seems to be trying to keep people from getting excited. Still, this press event seems to have kicked off a lot of news response all over the globe; I don't know why, but I'm glad to see it.
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