First demonstration of the European Center for winter 2023/2024
We have recently entered the climate phase known as El Niño. The impact of this important phenomenon at global level will last longer than expected and will also be felt in Italy already in the next weeks of December and then between January and February, with a significant impact on rainfall and temperatures. In short, winter will soon suffer a strong shock.
In the meantime, a necessary premise: What is this phenomenon and why is it so important? The name is a bit “weird”: El Niño means “ in Spanishthe child“: In fact, the thermal anomaly generally reaches its peak around the time of Christmas, which is precisely the time of the birth of the baby Jesus. The entry is in Spanish because it concerns Hispanic regions after Colombian colonization. It is a Major phenomenonobserved on the surface ofTropical Pacific OceanCentral and eastern area and is capable of influencing global weather and climate conditions.
Experts call this variant ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation). The cycles that characterize this phenomenon last about 2 to 6/7 years.
La Niña and El Niño are one each Cooling and warming of the sea surface. During a Niña phase the water is 1/3°C colder than normal, while in Niño phases it is 1/3°C warmer.
The latest update from NOAAthe US agency that studies ocean and atmospheric dynamics confirms this The surface waters of the Pacific Ocean have already warmed beyond expectations and that is why we are in the middle of an El Niño phase.
We are talking about a phenomenon that concerns you huge area, virtually the entire Pacific Ocean. These can occur during “strong” El Niño events Effects indirectly too European climate, with important implications for Italy too. Very high positive temperature anomalies over the northeast Pacific favor the development of the so-calledtropospheric rivers“, so enormous amounts of it latent heat which enter the atmosphere from the ocean and rise to great heights. These flows of warm air, once rising, tend to descend downward in subtropical areas. Fueling the large permanent high pressure areas such as the Azores anticyclone or the African anticyclone.
Well, after an early winter (December) with values in the normal range or even below, several unstable phases and above-average precipitation, a turnaround can be expected in the second part of the winter. The latest update from the authoritative European Center, recently established with operational headquarters in Bologna, confirmation how the temperatures should be maintained above average even up to +2°C in much of Europe, including Italy, between January and February. There should be no shortage of precipitation, the mountains are ready for lots of snow thanks to a very brisk, disrupted Atlantic current.
Thermal anomaly over the Pacific Ocean in the rectangle. Water warmer than normal, El Niño returns. In summary, the New Year could be characterized by a general context of above-average temperatures, as we have been experiencing with increasing frequency in recent times (persistent climate changes, temperatures). always and steadily increasing), interrupted by cold phases, but probably of short duration. The heat flow could actually go destabilize the polar vortexjust like between November and December, and thus favored the descent of rapid cold snaps from the North Pole.
We will see.