First “triple-dip” La Nia predicted this century

The U.N.’s meteorological service predicts that the phenomena known as La Nia will persist through the end of the year, marking the first instance in the 21st century of a mystery “triple dip” characterized by three consecutive years of its effect on global climate patterns such as drought and flooding.

Wednesday, the World Meteorological Organization said that La Nia conditions, which involve a large-scale cooling of ocean surface temperatures, had strengthened across the eastern and central equatorial Pacific as a result of a recent rise in trade winds.

Although La Nia is a cooling event, the agency’s chief official was quick to emphasize that the “triple dip” did not indicate a reduction in global warming.

“It is rare for three consecutive years to experience La Nia conditions. Its cooling influence momentarily slows the rise in global temperatures, but it will neither stop or reverse the long-term trend of warming “WMO General Secretary Petteri Taala stated.

La Nia is a natural and periodic cooling of regions of the equatorial Pacific that alters global weather patterns, as opposed to El Nio, a phenomena with the opposite effect. La Nia frequently causes an increase in Atlantic storms, less precipitation and an increase in wildfires in the western United States, and agricultural losses in the central United States.

A schematic depicting the probable effects of La Nia. Association National Oceanic and Atmospheric

According to studies, La Nia is more costly to the United States than El Nio.

Together, El Nio, La Nia, and the neutral condition are referred to as ENSO, which stands for El Nio Southern Oscillation, and they have one of the largest natural effects on climate, sometimes exacerbating and sometimes mitigating the large effects of human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil, and gas, according to scientists.