The probability is very high! Rare "triple" La Niña or early winter, the winter of 2022 will be very cold?

In recent years we have also heard a lot about La Niña and the effects of global climate change.

In 2022, the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Climate Prediction Center provides a more comprehensive analysis of La Niña during the summer months.

The current La Niña event has a more than 70% probability of persisting into early winter, as noted in the discussion of El Niño southern activity in three NOAA records.

The chance of a La Niña event gradually decreases from 86% in the coming season to 60% from December to February 2022-2023.

Oceanographic research surveys show upward propagating Kelvin waves propagating eastward and below-average subsurface temperatures throughout the east-central Pacific.

Low-level easterly anomalies and upper-level westerly anomalies persist over much of the equatorial Pacific, with convection and rainfall suppressed in the western and central tropical Pacific.

Overall, the coupled ocean-atmosphere system is aligning with the ongoing La Niña event.

For the United States, the most significant impact is the shift in the path of the mid-latitude rapids.

Relevant climate models suggest that many El Niño and La Niña events have occurred in the past, but this does not mean that these effects are concentrated.

Such a strong and concentrated phenomenon is very rare, with El Niño and La Niña cycling on average once every 3-7 years as opposite phases of the tropical Pacific climate pattern.

The two alternate in the tropical region, and the alternating warm and cold greatly affects the location and amount of local rainfall.

NOAA's decision-making process for determining El Niño conditions

In further investigations of La Niña, stronger than usual easterly trade winds are observed in the tropical Pacific, with increased transport and rainfall in Indonesia and a corresponding decrease in average surface pressure.

The temperature changes observed by scientists concentrated in the summer reveal that La Niña has made the average temperature deviation below -0.5 degrees Celsius in 21 of the last 24 months.

In the July survey discussion, the relevant records documented all the features of the expected strengthening of the Walker circulation, with the trade winds leading to below-average surface temperatures during this month.

Another result of this activity is the appearance of Kelvin waves.

In the coming time, the rising Kelvin waves will provide cool water to the surface.

Computer simulations show that by January 2023, La Niña, if it decays to neutral, will be the fourth time in the entire record.

La Niña's greatest impact on weather and climate will be in the winter, and the event may help Atlantic hurricanes become more active.

With current observations and trends, La Niña is now increasingly likely to continue into a third fall and winter season.

This is a rare "triple dip" phenomenon that has only occurred twice in the past.

Prolonged global disruption

La Niña is even rarer than El Niño for the U.S. In addition to the aforementioned Atlantic hurricanes and less rainfall, this phenomenon will bring more wildfires to the West, including agricultural losses.

Three consecutive La Niñas are not a good thing, as spring floods in India and Pakistan have been linked to La Niña, according to Columbia University's El Niño/La Niña weather chief.

The current La Niña was also formed in the late summer of 2020, when it set several records in the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in a severe worsening of the drought in the West during the winter.

Impact of El Niño and La Niña on the United States

By early summer 2021, the phenomenon turned neutral, pausing for a few months before a fall appearance made it a second time.

According to NOAA weather forecaster Becker, the May 2022 event is not a warning, but the second strongest La Niña on record.

When it comes to two-year La Niña events, which are prone to extremely cold weather, today's "trio" will bring a colder winter.

For the average person, if La Niña continues into a third winter, it will mean a longer period of drought potential in the western United States and more storm events of greater intensity during the hurricane season.

Once the hurricane season passes in late November, people will see winter weather after three La Niña effects, which then split the U.S. weather in two, with the southern half extremely dry and the northern half unbearably wet.

Today as scientists are not quite sure where the line of demarcation between the two will be, but the biggest impact areas will be felt in the west.

Scientists say this particularly long La Niña may be just a random phenomenon in the climate, though some researchers have warned.

They believe climate change will make future La Niña-like conditions more likely.

The big questions that remain are whether climate change is altering both oceanic climate patterns and whether La Niña will become more common in the future.

Since the 1950 observational record, strong El Niño and La Niña events have become more frequent and intense than they were centuries ago.

But experts can't tell if this is caused by natural variability or climate change, and overall, climate change makes the oceans warmer.

Related climate models suggest that climate change will shift to a more El Niño-like state.

but some researchers believe there are still too few records of them to give a clear picture of what is happening.

Or there is too much natural variability in the system for researchers to get long-term record information from it.

On that issue, the British Meteorological Research Group says there may be another possibility.

As the world warms and ice sheets melt, melting cold water slows the main conveyor belt of ocean currents and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation changes.

Also in a report published in Nature Climate Change in June, the team modeled how the collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation would affect the tropical South Atlantic, leaving more heat behind.

This change triggers a series of pressure changes that eventually strengthen the Pacific trade winds. The trade winds push warm water to the west, creating more La Niña-like conditions.

Climate change and global weather events

The La Niña phenomenon, which has also been an important topic of global climate research for several years, is an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that has the opposite effect of El Niño.

During La Niña, sea surface temperatures will be 3 to 5°C lower than normal east of the equator and will last for at least 5 months.

As a global climate impact, it can even disrupt the Atlantic and Pacific hurricane seasons.

That's why scientists pay so much attention to the problems it exhibits.

La Niña affects the normal weather patterns of the global climate and can lead to intense storms in some places and droughts in others.

So its manifestation in the United States is only a small part of the picture.

For Asia, tropical cyclone formation during a La Niña year includes the location of a ridge of subtropical high pressure that moves west across the western Pacific, thus increasing the threat of landfall in China.

So a long-lasting La Niña like this is not a good thing.

Also in the June Nature Climate Change study, scientists noted that a long-lasting La Niña could lead to accelerated global warming.

The dry, hot weather that has occurred in Australia in the past, as well as the heavy rains in parts of South America, have been linked to El Niño.

Wave-like cold structure in the equatorial Pacific Ocean for tropical instability waves

But a prolonged and persistent La Niña will undoubtedly further exacerbate the problem.

A team of researchers from the University of New South Wales in Sydney used computer modeling to demonstrate that stronger El Niño events are predicted in the future.

An increase in the number of extreme Enso events means a hotter El Niño and a colder La Niña.

La Niña causes flooding in eastern Australia

A related report in Global Climate Change states that future simulated sea surface temperature changes could see a weakening due to increased atmospheric CO2.

This weakening could weaken the strength of the El Niño Southern Oscillation temperature cycle, thus disrupting La Niña.

So in this respect, global warming is also affecting them.

Surveys by meteorological institutes in various regions today suggest that such rare weather patterns will become more frequent and pronounced in the future.

This is crucial for future long-term climate change studies, for example, an increase in the El Niño Southern Oscillation in the future will reduce the efficiency of heat absorption in the Southern Ocean.

The frozen Southern Ocean acts as a giant heat sink by

It is still unclear what will happen when the Southern Ocean's heat uptake is weakened.

As you can see weather changes are so important today and many questions remain unanswered.

But as ordinary people, we can feel that the climate has been unusual in recent years and that the climate change that people are facing today is perhaps the most difficult ever.