Cooling La Niña expected to be ‘short-lived’ – UN
A man carrying an umbrella is pictured through the window of a vehicle as he walks amid rains near the banks of Dal Lake in Srinagar on February 20, 2025. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse
GENEVA — The cooling weather phenomenon La Niña that emerged late last year is weak and likely to be brief, the UN said Thursday, dashing hopes it could help rein in soaring global temperatures.
“The weak La Niña event that emerged in December 2024 is likely to be short-lived,” the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization said in its latest update.
There is currently a 60-percent probability that conditions will shift back to neutral between this month and May, it said, adding that chances increased to 70 percent between April and June.
READ: Pagasa: PH remains under La Niña alert
The WMO had last year voiced hope the return of La Niña would help lower temperatures slightly after months of global heat records fueled in part by La Niña’s opposite number, the warming El Niño weather pattern, which gripped the planet for a year from June 2023.
But the phenomenon appeared unlikely to significantly impact temperatures after 2024 ticked in as the hottest year ever recorded.
Despite the presence of weak La Niña conditions, WMO pointed out Thursday that “January 2025 was the warmest January on record”.
READ: What looming La Niña means for global temperatures
And it said its latest global seasonal climate update, which looks beyond just the impact of the El Niño and La Niña phenomena, noted that “above-normal sea surface temperatures (were) expected to persist across all major oceans—except for the near-equatorial eastern Pacific”.
It also forecast “above-average temperatures over nearly all land areas worldwide”.
La Niña refers to a naturally occurring climate phenomenon that cools ocean surface temperatures in large swathes of the tropical Pacific Ocean, coupled with winds, rains, and changes in atmospheric pressure.
In many locations, especially in the tropics, La Niña produces the opposite climate impacts to El Niño, which heats up the surface of the oceans, leading to drought in some parts of the world and triggering heavy downpours elsewhere.
The agency said the probability of El Niño developing again between now and June was “negligible”.
While both are natural climate events, WMO stressed they were “taking place in the broader context of human-induced climate change, which is increasing global temperatures, exacerbating extreme weather and climate, and impacting seasonal rainfall and temperature patterns”.
WMO chief Celeste Saulo stressed in the update that seasonal forecasts for El Niño and La Niña and the associated impacts on weather and climate patterns globally were “an important tool to inform early warnings and early action” and help support decision-making.
“These forecasts translate into millions of dollars worth in economic savings for key sectors like agriculture, energy, and transport, and saved thousands of lives over the years by enabling disaster risk preparedness,” she said.
