Remember the halcyon days of 2016, when we were bidding adieu to El Niño and recovering from the death of Harambe? Well, the beloved gorilla may have departed this world for good, but El Niño will return. It always does.
New data presented today by the NOAA and NASA shows that global temperatures hit a record high for the third straight year in 2016. But while the El Niño weather system was cited as a contributing factor, the researchers say an overarching global warming trend is indisputable.
It teased us with the possibility of a no-show this summer, but a weak La Niña has officially arrived, according to NOAA. Parts of the northern United States can expect a cooler and wetter-than-average winter, while southern California, unfortunately, can expect more drought.
After promising biblical rains and instead giving California crabs, El Niño passed away quietly last spring. But while early data suggested La Niña would rise to fill the chasm El Niño’s departure had left in our meteorological newsfeeds, NOAA is now starting to think La Niña might not happen at all.
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration has just released an update on the state of the Earth’s coral reefs, and it’s bleak as hell. For the third year in a row, many reefs around the world will be exposed to hotter-than-normal temperatures, placing them at risk (again) for catastrophic die-offs.
The now-dead El Niño wreaked serious havoc upon our food supply, from poisoning shellfish to obliterating stone fruits. Now the avocado is at risk. In Australia and New Zealand, a double whammy of massive fires and heavy rains wiped out avocado crops, causing a shortage of the brunch staple. Growers would have been…
The monster El Niño of 2015-2016 is finally gone, but scientists are still coming to terms with its impacts on the planet. Among those impacts: charging up the global carbon cycle and pushing atmospheric CO2 levels above 400 parts per million (ppm) for an entire year—a first in human history.
It was called “too big to fail” and labeled a monster. In some ways, it never quite lived up to what were, quite frankly, unreasonable expectations. In other ways, it kept on giving, even when we thought it was all over. As of yesterday, El Niño has left us.
Move over, El Niño. You may be the strongest such climate pattern humans have ever recorded, and you may have given California crabs this week, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration can see right through you, and you’re losing ground.
This year’s monster El Niño is truly a monster—it’s been blamed for killing coral reefs. Add another die-off to the list: Southern California beaches are blanketed in hundreds of thousands of tiny crabs. So many that it’s turning the beaches red.
The strongest El Niño ever seen is finally gone. But before it left it had plenty to throw at us: Storms, droughts, blackouts, thousands of pounds of dead fish. And we finally know just what it was that made El Niño so furious.
Over the last few years, Venezuelans have suffered from the devastating impacts of a crumbling economy. Now severe drought has incapacitated its biggest hydroelectric plant, leading to daily blackouts. Earlier this month, the country mandated a three-day weekend as part of energy rationing. Now the situation has…
It’s been a wild six months for megastorms. In October 2015, Hurricane Patricia became the most powerful ever measured, with winds topping 200 mph before being downgraded near the coast of Mexico. In February 2016, there was Winston, the most potent cyclone recorded in the Southern Hemisphere, which made landfall on…
The great Niño of 2015 is finally on its way out. But before it goes, it has one final present to leave us: a giant cache of creepy coral bones littering the ocean floor, like a tiny seafaring graveyard. We’ll miss you too, Niño.
If scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef is on your bucket list, you might want to book tickets soon. This week, marine biologists dropped some horribly depressing news: the Great Barrier Reef is dying. The world’s largest reef is in the midst of a widespread coral bleaching event, and scientists aren’t sure whether…
El Niño is almost over, but the wreckage of things it knocked over in its wake continues—and one of those things is your sugar supply. Eat your desserts while you still can, friends.
El Niño is almost ready to give way for the rise of its cold counterpart, La Niña. But before it goes, it has one more tough weather hit to throw at the US: a bizarre combination of flooding and an ever-intensifying drought.
Don’t be too quick to thank El Niño for the last wave of storms that blessed the West Coast with swamped reservoirs, replenished snowpack, and spectacular flaming palm trees. Turns out that El Niño had a little help—precipitation was increased by an estimated 15 percent thanks to cloud-seeding.
