Today is the second class of our current March class period. The start time for our class will be 10:00am. We will begin class with a casual conversation. Our reading today is about culture. Please try to read as much as possible. Underline any words or sentences that are unfamiliar. Our listening is about weather. We will finish with our grammar sentences.
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AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Federal forecasters say that an El Niño is likely to develop later this year. It's a weather pattern that raises temperatures globally. Combine that with climate change and new records could be set. Lauren Sommer reports from NPR's climate desk.
LAUREN SOMMER, BYLINE: Along the equator, the Pacific Ocean is abnormally warm right now. That could soon shift the planet into an El Niño, a cycle that has global impacts.
DANIEL SWAIN: There are some growing signs that a quite substantial, if not very strong, El Niño event could potentially be brewing.
SOMMER: Daniel Swain is a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. He says El Niño is a natural cycle the planet goes through - a way that the ocean is connected to the atmosphere.
SWAIN: Its function in the global Earth system is to release heat from the deeper ocean.
SOMMER: So years with an El Niño are generally hotter than normal. And these days, temperatures are already hotter because of climate change. Emissions from burning fossil fuels have made the planet about 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer on average since the industrial revolution. 2024, the hottest year on record, was an El Niño year.
SWAIN: Global warming is giving more energy to the whole system to be unearthed by these El Niño events when they occur.
SOMMER: And Swain says that doesn't just mean more heat waves.
SWAIN: Maybe the more important thing is what it means for everything else in terms of more energy potentially for storms, heavier downpours, more intensive droughts, more extreme wildfires.
SOMMER: Federal forecasters say the El Niño is likely to develop this summer, but it wouldn't peak until later on. Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, says that could lead to some new records.
ZEKE HAUSFATHER: If a strong El Niño does develop, it'll boost temperatures in 2026 a bit, but it'll have a particularly large effect on temperatures in 2027. And it is likely that 2027 will be the warmest year on record.
SOMMER: Hausfather says there are also signs that climate change is accelerating. The Earth is heating up faster now than it was a few decades ago, and that's like adding a permanent super El Niño to the planet every decade. Lauren Sommer, NPR News.