The El Nino climate pattern that is strengthening in the Pacific Ocean is on track to be the largest one in at least 150 years, researchers said today during a press briefing. If the monster forecasts they presented pan out, the surge of heat that the El Nino will unleash from the ocean, combined with warming from human-caused climate change, will probably make next year the hottest on record ' and cue up extreme weather in many parts of the world. According to the projections from a suite of climate models, the peak of this El Nino is set to surpass the previous record-holder by 'truly, a mind-blowing margin', says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit research organization in California that hosted the briefing. It's 'not outside the realm of possibility' that the event could combine with climate change to raise global average temperatures in 2027 as high as 1.7'C above the pre-industrial average, he said at the briefing. This would bring the planet...
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