How the 2026 Super El Niño and Climate Change Are Related
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How the 2026 Super El Niño and Climate Change Are Related
The tropical Pacific has seen heat build for months as a “super” El Niño takes shape. A climate phenomenon that forms every few years, this year’s iteration of El Niño has been on a tear of daily records and is forecast to reach unprecedented strength this winter. While it’s characterized by hotter-than-normal waters in the eastern tropical Pacific, El Niño is a global problem.
热带太平洋地区数月来热量不断积聚，一场“超级”厄尔尼诺现象正在形成。作为一种每隔几年就会形成的气候现象，今年的厄尔尼诺现象不断刷新每日记录，预计将在今年冬天达到前所未有的强度。虽然其特征是东热带太平洋海域水温异常升高，但厄尔尼诺是一个全球性问题。
It’s fair to wonder how another global problem is interacting with El Niño: climate change, driven by burning fossil fuels. While a hotter climate begetting a hotter El Niño might seem like a done deal, “I have more questions than I have reactions” to what’s happening, says Christopher Callahan, a climate researcher at Indiana University. In other words, the relationship is still an area of active research—and this year’s event could provide vital insights.
人们不禁会想，另一个全球性问题——由燃烧化石燃料引起的气候变化——是如何与厄尔尼诺相互作用的。印第安纳大学的气候研究员克里斯托弗·卡拉汉（Christopher Callahan）表示，虽然气候变暖导致厄尔尼诺现象加剧似乎已成定局，但他对目前发生的情况“疑问多于反应”。换句话说，这种关系仍处于积极研究阶段，而今年的事件可能会提供重要的见解。
El Niño’s added ocean heat affects the atmosphere, causing weather patterns around the world to shift. Consider it kind of like a domino run, where one tile starts a chain reaction. Such a major slug of heat in the Pacific will act more like a shove then a light flick on the atmosphere, and the resulting shifts in weather are expected to be generationally intense.
厄尔尼诺现象增加的海洋热量会影响大气层，导致全球天气模式发生变化。可以将其想象成多米诺骨牌，其中一块骨牌引发了连锁反应。太平洋中如此巨大的热量冲击对大气的作用更像是一次猛推，而非轻微的拨动，由此产生的气候变化预计将达到几代人以来最强烈的程度。
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is forecasting 100 percent odds of an extremely strong El Niño through December and above 80 percent odds it stays that way through February. Data shows this El Niño has already set multiple all-time daily heat records including a recent peak of 3.4 degrees Celsius.
美国国家海洋和大气管理局（NOAA）预测，到12月出现极强厄尔尼诺现象的概率为100%，且持续到明年2月的概率超过80%。数据显示，此次厄尔尼诺现象已经创下了多项历史最高日气温记录，其中包括近期达到的3.4摄氏度的峰值。
NOAA issues its El Niño forecast as a three-month rolling average, and the agency predicts heat could peak at 2.7 degrees Celsius above normal for the period from October to December. (It’s not out of the question that heat could surpass 3 degrees Celsius, though.) If the forecast holds true, it would smash the previous record of 2.4 degrees Celsius, which was set during the 1982-1983 event.
NOAA以三个月滚动平均值发布厄尔尼诺预测，该机构预计10月至12月期间的热量峰值可能比正常水平高出2.7摄氏度。（不过，热量超过3摄氏度的可能性也并非不存在。）如果预测属实，它将打破1982-1983年事件期间创下的2.4摄氏度的历史记录。
How Is Climate Change Impacting El Niño?
气候变化如何影响厄尔尼诺？
There is a growing body of evidence that climate change is likely playing at least some role in influencing El Niño. The magnitude and frequency of the phenomenon has increased over the past 60 years, says Francisco Estrada, coordinator of the Climate Change Research Program at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and so has the variability and how the effects are distributed around the world. He says there shouldn’t be a debate framed as a choice between a “natural El Niño” and an “El Niño caused by climate change” but rather as an interaction between the two processes.
越来越多的证据表明，气候变化可能在影响厄尔尼诺现象方面发挥了至少一定的作用。墨西哥国立自治大学气候变化研究项目协调员弗朗西斯科·埃斯特拉达（Francisco Estrada）表示，过去60年来，该现象的强度和频率有所增加，其变异性以及在全球范围内的影响分布方式也发生了变化。他认为，不应将辩论局限于“自然厄尔尼诺”和“气候变化引起的厄尔尼诺”之间的选择，而应将其视为两个过程之间的相互作用。
“You can’t separate El Niño from global warming—they’re inextricably linked,” he explains. Modeling also indicates that El Niño is likely to strengthen as the planet warms, though Callahan notes that many models struggle to accurately represent long-term temperature trends in the eastern tropical Pacific. That can give researchers some pause, but there’s also other evidence that climate change is juicing El Niño.
“你无法将厄尔尼诺与全球变暖分开——它们有着千丝万缕的联系，”他解释道。模型还表明，随着地球变暖，厄尔尼诺现象可能会加强，尽管卡拉汉指出，许多模型难以准确反映东热带太平洋的长期温度趋势。这可能会让研究人员产生一些顾虑，但也有其他证据表明气候变化正在加剧厄尔尼诺现象。
“The majority of climate models say that El Nino amplitude shall go up in a warming climate, and all of our paleoclimate records say that we’re currently in a more active period of El Niño than the last several 1,000 years,” Callahan says. Research published in August uses data collected from ancient coral, and provides that 1,000-year glimpse Callahan mentions. (He wasn’t involved with the study.) The scientists found an uptick in El Niño amplitude that neatly mirrors when humans started pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, though they didn’t attempt to attribute the shift to climate change.
卡拉汉说：“大多数气候模型表明，在气候变暖的情况下，厄尔尼诺的振幅将会增加，而且我们所有的古气候记录都表明，我们目前正处于过去几千年来厄尔尼诺最活跃的时期。”8月份发表的一项研究使用了从古珊瑚中收集的数据，提供了卡拉汉提到的那1000年的概况。（他没有参与这项研究。）科学家们发现厄尔尼诺振幅的上升与人类开始向大气中排放温室气体的时间完全吻合，尽管他们并没有试图将这种变化归因于气候变化。
This year’s El Niño will provide another data point to help researchers suss things out.
今年的厄尔尼诺现象将提供另一个数据点，帮助研究人员理清头绪。
How Is El Niño Impacting Climate Change?
厄尔尼诺如何影响气候变化？
But as Callahan notes, there’s also an important question about how El Niño is layering on top of climate change. “Even if climate change has not made the event itself stronger, even if the [sea surface temperature] anomalies are totally natural, the presence of those SSTs in a climate that has been changed by global warming might produce unprecedented impacts,” he says.
但正如卡拉汉所指出的，还有一个重要的问题是厄尔尼诺现象如何叠加在气候变化之上。他说：“即使气候变化没有使事件本身变得更强，即使[海面温度]异常完全是自然的，在被全球变暖改变的气候中，这些海面温度的存在也可能产生前所未有的影响。”
El Niño’s impacts on weather—known as teleconnections—are well known, from increasing the odds of drought in the Amazon and Indonesia to juicing precipitation in the Southwest US and lowering the odds of Atlantic hurricanes. Such an extreme event layered on top of climate change doesn’t mean teleconnections get thrown out the window, though. In fact, some of them may be even more intense.
厄尔尼诺对天气的影响（即遥相关）是众所周知的，从增加亚马逊和印度尼西亚的干旱几率，到增加美国西南部的降水，再到降低大西洋飓风的几率。然而，这种叠加在气候变化之上的极端事件并不意味着遥相关会被抛弃。事实上，其中一些影响可能会更加强烈。
“We can no longer place as much confidence in the knowledge we’ve gathered from data regarding how El Niño manifests in terms of weather and climate in different parts of the planet,” says Estrada.
埃斯特拉达说：“我们不能再像以前那样，对从数据中收集到的关于厄尔尼诺如何在地球不同地区表现为天气和气候的知识抱有那么大的信心了。”
Fishermen in the eastern Pacific are suffering the impact of El Niño, which is forcing several species to migrate to deeper waters and leaving nets half-empty. Photograph: Getty Images
东太平洋的渔民正遭受厄尔尼诺的影响，这迫使多个物种迁移到更深的水域，导致渔网半空。图片来源：盖蒂图片社
What El Niño Means for Climate Risk
厄尔尼诺对气候风险意味着什么
From a risk perspective, Estrada believes it’s important to understand how the two phenomena interact and how that combination will affect societies. He and Callahan’s main concern is not merely whether this El Niño will be the most intense on record but rather the combination of an exceptional event with a climate that has warmed significantly.
从风险的角度来看，埃斯特拉达认为，了解这两种现象如何相互作用以及这种组合将如何影响社会至关重要。他和卡拉汉主要担心的不仅仅是这次厄尔尼诺是否会成为有记录以来最强烈的一次，而是这一异常事件与已经显著变暖的气候相结合所带来的后果。
“Surprises are the last thing you want when you’re trying to manage risk,” Estrada says. Callahan’s work shows that the impacts of El Niño on society are extreme, with the most severe events knocking off trillions of dollars from the global GDP. Ecosystems also suffer greatly, particularly coral reefs, which are facing a mass bleaching event.
“当你试图管理风险时，最不希望看到的就是意外，”埃斯特拉达说。卡拉汉的研究表明，厄尔尼诺对社会的影响是极端的，最严重的事件会使全球GDP损失数万亿美元。生态系统也遭受了巨大破坏，特别是珊瑚礁，它们正面临大规模白化事件。
Given this scenario, the United Nations and other international organizations have called for urgent adaptation measures to safeguard the well-being of the at-risk populations and ecosystems. Some places are already doing that: California preemptively declared a state of emergency last month. “El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world. Impacts will hit even harder, travel even fart
鉴于这种情况，联合国和其他国际组织呼吁采取紧急适应措施，以保障处于危险中的人口和生态系统的福祉。一些地方已经开始这样做：加利福尼亚州上个月先发制人地宣布进入紧急状态。“厄尔尼诺现象将为变暖的世界火上浇油。影响将更加严重，传播得更远。”