As forecasters warn that a potentially powerful El Niño could develop in the coming months, headlines describing a possible "Godzilla" or "monster" event have renewed global attention on the climate phenomenon.
UN Secretary-General Issues Urgent Warning
"The world must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in a video statement on social media. "El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world. Impacts will hit even harder, travel even farther and cross borders with devastating speed."
Earlier this month, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said there is an 80% chance of El Niño developing between June and August and nearly a 90% chance it will persist through at least November. The agency said forecast models point to at least a moderate event and possibly a strong one.
NOAA Predicts High Chance of Very Strong El Niño
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there is a 63% chance of a "very strong" El Niño developing later this year or early next year. While the phenomenon can trigger major weather disruptions around the globe, experts caution that some of the public discussion surrounding El Niño often blurs the line between scientific projections and speculation.
What is El Niño?
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern caused by unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. Occurring every two to seven years and typically lasting between nine and 12 months, it can alter rainfall, temperatures and storm patterns across large parts of the globe.
"In order to understand El Niño, you have to first understand what the normal condition is," Paul Roundy, a professor of atmospheric and environmental sciences at the State University of New York at Albany, told Anadolu.
Under normal conditions, trade winds push warm surface water across the equatorial Pacific toward Asia and Australia while colder water rises near South America. During El Niño, those wind patterns weaken or reverse, allowing warm ocean water that normally remains in the western Pacific near Asia to spread eastward. At the same time, colder water from deeper layers is prevented from reaching the surface.
"The East Pacific becomes abnormally warm," Roundy said. "How this matters for the world is that where it's cold in the tropics, it doesn't rain much. When it's warm in those normally cold places, it rains a lot."
"So around the world, you'll get wet regions shifting to dry and dry regions shifting to wet."
Climate Change Amplifies El Niño Impacts
Jack O'Connor, senior scientist at the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security, said one of the most common misconceptions is that El Niño is caused by climate change. While El Niño is a naturally occurring climate cycle, he said global warming can amplify its impacts.
"Heatwaves can be hotter, droughts can be drier and intense rainfall can be more intense," O'Connor told Anadolu.
Is It Really 'Godzilla'?
While scientists do not use the term formally, "Godzilla" is often used in media coverage to describe unusually powerful El Niño events. O'Connor said current forecasts were notable because climate prediction systems around the world were increasingly converging around the likelihood of at least a moderate event, with the possibility of a strong one.
However, he also cautioned that alarming terms do not always align with the uncertain nature of predictions. "Such events are rare," he said. "It is clear there is an elevated risk of potentially impactful weather changes."
He stressed that forecasts should be viewed as an opportunity for governments and communities to prepare for heatwaves, droughts, floods, wildfires and food-security challenges that could emerge in different regions. At the same time, he said concern is growing over the fact that a powerful El Niño event could coincide with a warmer world caused by climate change.
Roundy also believed the developing event had the potential to become unusually strong. He pointed to a record-breaking burst of westerly winds near Papua New Guinea in late April that helped push large amounts of warm water eastward across the Pacific. According to Roundy, the event was stronger than a similar atmospheric episode that preceded the powerful 1997-98 El Niño, one of the most significant on record.
He added that ocean temperatures in parts of the western Pacific were already more than half a degree warmer before the wind burst than they were before the 1997 event. Roundy argued that this year's event is about 50% stronger in terms of wind stress than the corresponding event in 1997.
"The strength of the impact on the ocean goes with the square of the wind speed," he explained. "The bigger the wind, the bigger the punch."
What Could It Mean for the World?
Because El Niño influences weather systems far beyond the Pacific Ocean, its impacts can be felt across multiple continents. "Usually, countries nearer to the Pacific bear the brunt of strong El Niño events," O'Connor said.
Australia and parts of eastern South America could face heightened drought and wildfire risks, while western South America may experience increased flooding. "Rainfall patterns can be affected in places like South Asia and East Africa, causing havoc with agricultural systems," O'Connor said.
The UN and World Food Programme warned this month that a strong El Niño pattern could threaten harvests, livestock, water supplies and food production across Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean. The agencies said that without early action, millions more people could face worsening food insecurity and the loss of their livelihoods.
But experts note that El Niño's impacts are not universally negative. In some regions, increased rainfall can replenish reservoirs and groundwater supplies, providing benefits that last beyond the event itself.
Roundy also noted that major El Niño events can alter the way heat is stored and released by the oceans. He pointed to the aftermath of the 1997-1998 event. After large amounts of heat were released from the Pacific Ocean, global temperature increases subsequently slowed relative to the long-term trend for as many as 15 years.
"Some people call that the hiatus," he said. "Global warming didn't actually stop because CO2 was still acting to warm the climate, but the ocean lost so much heat that the sea surface was colder."
He said this pattern is likely to occur again in the event of a powerful El Niño. "We may still be warming, but we'll be warming at a lower rate, because the ocean is colder and will be uptaking some of the heat that would have otherwise made the atmosphere warmer," Roundy added.
For now, experts say the key message is not panic but preparation. Whether the event ultimately earns labels such as "Godzilla" remains uncertain, Roundy said. What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that El Niño conditions are already taking shape.
"The warm water is already arriving," he said. "This is why confidence has gone so high -- because it's already El Niño."
