What powered the growth of 2026 super El Niño?

As early as March, the ECMWF and other climate forecast centers predicted a strong El Niño event for 2026 - a forecast that has largely materialized, with Eastern Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies breaking century-long records. This super El Niño shares a distinctive two-part evolution common to the extreme El Niño events of 1982, 1997, and 2015. Specifically, the classic basin-scale El Niño driven by a deepened thermocline is preceded by a springtime (February - May) "booster" linked to the slow eastward expansion of the western Pacific warm pool coupled with westerly wind anomalies. The seminar presents real-time observations in relation to key El Niño precursors in the literature.

Attend in person or online (see weblink)

Room 350/372