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China braces as a brewing super El Nino brings extreme weather
Researchers say this year’s El Nino prelude already shows extreme destructive power, even before the worst impacts typically arrive the following year.
China is facing a surge of extreme weather, from massive typhoons and severe floods to scorching heat, and researchers link the volatility to a brewing “super” El Nino, according to SCMP Economy. SCMP Economy reports that Jiang Hua, chief El Nino forecaster at China’s National Marine Environmental Forecasting Centre, warned that the most severe impacts of such events often show up in the following year, but that this year’s prelude has already delivered “extreme destructive power.” She said the event this year could rival the historically recognized super El Nino of 1997 to 98 in intensity.
According to the article, Jiang and her team detected large amounts of anomalously warm water beneath the surface in March across the tropical regions of the northern and southern Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The warm-water anomalies, the article says, could converge toward the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, accelerating development of the El Nino event.
SCMP Economy also uses a metaphor to describe the ocean conditions, saying the entire tropical Pacific is being compared to a “boiling soup,” as the process moves from the current prelude toward potentially stronger effects next year.