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Shortly ago, a foreign weather forecast institute officially confirmed that El Niño formed as the water temperature of the Pacific near the equator rose higher than the average.

According to meteorologists, the possibility that the current El Niño episode can develop to a very strong level in late autumn and early winter is 63 percent, in which case it will be one of the largest ones ever observed since 1950.

The World Meteorological Organization warned that if El Niño develops, the risk of climatic disasters like heat wave, drought and heavy rain might increase.

A natural climate phenomenon in which the temperature of the sea water rises above the average in the equatorial Pacific region, El Niño causes abnormal weather conditions. It changes the atmospheric flow and rain patterns affecting the weather all over the world.

The last century saw some 30 El Niño episodes.

Whenever it occurred, the earth’s highest temperature record was renewed and mankind suffered huge casualties and material losses due to various natural disasters.

In recent years, the increase in the heat content of the ocean caused by global warming resulted in more frequent occurrence of El Niño than in the past, and its intensity and impact have been enhanced.

The El Niño episodes that occurred in 2023 and 2024, for instance, caused climatic disasters and mankind suffered great damages from unheard-of heat waves, record high temperatures, floods and landslides.

The WMO expects that temperatures higher than the average will be recorded in most regions of the world this summer.

In some countries and regions, the temperature has already reached a record-breaking level.

In Britain, the temperature went above 35oC on May 26, which is 2 degrees higher than the maximum temperature recorded in May. Its weather bureau reported that such a heat wave is a rare phenomenon not only in spring but also in midsummer.

In Spain, 101 persons died from the heat wave last May, which was the highest record since the aggregate began to be recorded in 2015. Its health ministry stressed that the extreme heat wave that occurred before summer has a serious impact on people’s health.

Meteorologists described the phenomenon as “really surprising” and “unbelievably strange”.

According to the WMO, the possibility that the record of “the hottest year in history” might be broken between 2026 and 2030 is 86 percent.

A meteorologist analysed that the probability that the mean temperature of the earth in that period might be more than 1.5oC higher than that in the period before the Industrial Revolution is 75 percent.

The secretary-general of the WMO and other experts of different countries claim that El Niño will fan up the hot weather and the world should accept it as an urgent climate warning.