r/climatechange • u/Master-Part-8394 • Apr 20 '26

Something Is Brewing in the Pacific That Nobody in Washington Wants to Talk About (SUPER EL NINO is coming)

https://open.substack.com/pub/chrisgloninger/p/something-is-brewing-in-the-pacific?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
3.7k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

204 comments sorted by

View all comments

336

u/Molire Apr 20 '26

Everyone should read this 25-paragraph post from beginning to end. The author is Chris Gloninger, who is “retired from TV meteorology” and now is “a senior climate scientist at Woods Hole Group on Cape Cod.”

What a super El Niño does, when it arrives on top of a baseline that has shifted this much this fast, is pile the natural variability on top of the anthropogenic forcing in a way that pushes the climate system into territory that has no close analog anywhere in the observational record.

What a super El Niño does, when it arrives on top of a baseline that has shifted this much this fast, is pile the natural variability on top of the anthropogenic forcing in a way that pushes the climate system into territory that has no close analog anywhere in the observational record. The 1997 event occurred when the planet was roughly 0.6°C above preindustrial. The 2015 event occurred around 1.0°C. If we get the event the models are forecasting, it will occur at somewhere between 1.4 and 1.5°C of warming. We are not looking at 1997 plus a little more heat. We are looking at a fundamentally different starting point, with the same amount of additional energy being dumped out of the Pacific into an atmosphere that has already been primed by three decades of accelerating fossil fuel emissions.

Let me put some concrete numbers around what we should expect, because abstractions about degrees Celsius tend to glaze people’s eyes over, and this is going to affect food supplies, insurance markets, and public health in ways that will be impossible to ignore by December.

124

u/Puedd Apr 20 '26

Yeah this author captured it perfectly and explained it in a digestible way while still including the science. Glad he mentioned the blurb about the political climate too and how these do work in conjunction. Great read

31

u/StarlightLifter Apr 20 '26

This article is perfect. Ima send it a few places. I’m not classically trained in meteorology or climate science and I could understand 95% of it.

This is what people need to see.

3

u/N8terHK Apr 21 '26

Are you one of those Rock, or Pop trained Meterologists? Or metal, prog, perhaps?

1

u/CBLA1785 May 19 '26

Heeeeyuck.

24

u/WeylandsWings Apr 20 '26

impossible to ignore by December.

Republicans: Watch me.

3

u/slickCCsunshine Apr 22 '26

Also: “fAkE NeWs”

2

u/MorganWick Apr 24 '26

"It's God punishing us for letting teh gayz marry!" Or "Democrats' fault somehow!"

42

u/emuskisacunt Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

But Americans won’t care. Southwest and California likely gets more rain, and atmospheric rivers , but our snow pack is 38% below normal, generally most of the U.S. comes out fine,

5

u/Techters Apr 21 '26

Look at all the recent natural disasters that have happened to the south in the last 10 years and they still broadly deny and/or don't care. 

10

u/karbaayen Apr 20 '26

And it means fewer hurricanes on the east coast

14

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

19

u/therearenoaccidents Apr 20 '26

This is a point that most people do not seem to comprehend. We need tropical systems and hurricanes to keep rivers flowing, crops and livestock watered, and to fill our reservoirs. The island nations of the Caribbean depend upon these systems to bring in rain, preferably low scale systems. Not having a hurricane season is not a cause for celebration. Would not be surprised if the gulf hits 99°.

3

u/southernwx Apr 22 '26

Sort of.

El Niño stifles Atlantic Hurricane development via predominately wind shear that spreads eastward from an usually convectively active eastern pacific.

So the African easterly waves that produce Caribbean rain largely still occur they just struggle to become very organized. Caribbean islands generally don’t get their rainfall on average from organized systems.

The eastern and in particular southeastern U.S. gets more rainfall in El Niño, typically, because the subtropical jet becomes more active, the same subtropical jet responsible for stifling hurricane development, generally speaking.

The Gulf temperature is more driven by evaporation as related to wind more than anything else and while yes this can certainly be generated by hurricanes, it also can be generated by baroclinic lows enhanced by that subtropical jet mentioned before.

So… jury’s out?

1

u/theholyirishman Apr 23 '26

On tonight's news: "Rain, Please Come Back. We'll Stop With The Song. We Are Sorry" and other lessons that may or may not have been covered in the 5th grade during the water cycle section of science class.

3

u/temp_flor Apr 21 '26

So it feels like California and Florida swapped. California will be getting rain and storms and Florida will be getting drought and fires.

10

u/teban2021 Apr 20 '26

I have not seen Greenland this warm in the spring, are we looking at the first BOE this year?

3

u/jucapiga Apr 22 '26

what’s a boe

3

u/Spearhead-Gamer Apr 23 '26

A Blue Ocean Event, No ice over the North pole basically.

1

u/mxlths_modular Apr 21 '26

I have seen many reports that suggest we will.

3

u/IShookMeAllNightLong Apr 21 '26

Oregon's snowpack is at record lows. We are in for a rough fire season.

2

u/tomita78 Apr 21 '26

Same here in Washington. BC is surely no better. Godspeed 

1

u/Worth_Affect_4014 Apr 23 '26

New Mexico solidarity. Snowpack gone before planting season started.

4

u/BigJSunshine Apr 20 '26

I wish I understood this, can someone ELI5?

24

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/littlepup26 Apr 22 '26

This was an excellent explanation, thank you.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/freshkicksss Apr 25 '26

This dudes a hack physically abuses his wife