Some Monsters are Real

What's coming has never been seen before in the history of modern global industrial civilization ... and it's just getting started.

Godzilla is a fictional monster created by Japanese writers in the early 1950s. In case you need a reminder, Godzilla is a lizard-like creature of enormous physical stature who rises from the ocean and stomps through cities, crushing people, vehicles, buildings, railroads, ships and bridges, while swatting aircraft out of the sky, even as the full collective firepower of the military is ineffective against the beast. Often, civilization is saved by some unexpected benevolent monster that rises up against Godzilla, giving a temporary reprieve by driving Godzilla back into the ocean, even as everyone knows Godzilla will return in just a few years.

Yeah, it’s going to be a Godzilla El Niño.

Here is the latest forecast through March, 2027, from CFSv2, the NOAA model for the sea-surface temperature in the region of the ocean where El Niño is identified, the so-called Niño 3.4 region. The latest data shows a mean peak anomaly of about 4.2°C above the 1991-2020 baseline, happening sometime in late November or early December.

There has been some debate that the CFSv2 model tends to run hot. Maybe it does. Here is the latest ECMWF Nino 3.4 anomaly plume, released July 5th, showing a peak Niño 3.4 sea-surface temperature of about 3.9°C above the 1991-2020 baseline. Close enough. And terrifying.

The current Niño 3.4 sea-surface temperature anomaly is just short of 2.0°C above the 1991-2020 baseline, already making this a very strong El Niño event, with the bulk of the expected warming yet to come. This graph shows the current record and rising temperature for the Niño 3.4 region.

It’s hard to get a feeling for just how historically absurd the current situation and forecasts really are. So, for those who are statistically inclined, here’s the latest update on the “standard deviation” of the sea-surface temperature in the Niño 3.4 region. The most recent data, through July 7th, shows the current Niño 3.4 sea-surface temperature at 3.63 standard deviations above the 1991-2020 baseline, which would be about a 1-in-7000 event in the absence of anthropogenic warming. There is nothing even vaguely historically comparable to this.

In the next few days or weeks this El Niño should easily break four standard deviations. Is a five-sigma event in our future?

El Niño is just getting started.

Maybe you’ve noticed the recent change in tone from climate scientists and journalists. They’re speaking out now. Not holding back. The collective hold-your-breath moment is over, and what they’re saying is gut-punching.

For example, yesterday, from weather expert David Schlotthauer,

Wow, talk about westerly wind bust activity. This is jaw-droppingly impressive. I would bet we make it through all of July without one outbreak of Easterly wind anomalies. We are about to see huge SST anomaly increases over the next 2 to 3 weeks. Also, Subsurface anomalies have broken a new record. Some of the highest are in the far EPAC and are running around 8-8.9 °C above average.

From The Daily Times,

Experts encourage countries to strengthen disaster response plans, protect water supplies, and improve climate resilience before severe conditions develop.

And this, from Jeff Berardelli (aka weatherprof):

What is developing is so far beyond any global climate event that has impacted modern industrial civilization that predicting much of what’s coming is educated guesswork. Turn the volume on the typical El Niño impacts up to eleven, then watch the collective infrastructure of modern industrial civilization crumble. Watch as flooding storms wash away roads and cities. Watch as trailing storms create new inland lakes, swamping farmland. Watch as fires raze forests and grasslands. Watch as heatwaves turn temperate regions into unsurvivable hellscapes. Watch as crops fail and dams burst. Watch as the shelves of your local grocery store gradually, then suddenly, go empty.

But mostly, watch as the planet jumps to the next level of warming, as global surface temperatures rise to levels not seen in over 120,000 years. Is 2027 going to see a global surface temperature average more than 1.7°C above the pre-industrial baseline? Is a month with global surface temperatures above 2°C on the horizon? Will we see a day above 2.5°C?

We don’t know.

But we do know the monster that’s coming to drive Godzilla back into the depths of the ocean during this ENSO cycle, and its name is “time.” There will be a time when this El Niño has passed, when we are able to catch our collective breath, take stock of the damage, count the survivors and begin rebuilding what we can.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of the movie. Recent research has shown that as this century progresses, both El Niño and La Niña are going to rapid cycle into increasingly strong and alternating events. Monster El Niño, monster La Niña, monster El Niño, monster La Niña, over and over again, each time bigger and more destructive, until eventually the planet settles into an almost permanent El Niño state sometime after 2100. Time is definitely not on our side.

What the planet is going to experience over the next 12 months is just a preview of the movie that’s coming. Godzilla is going to return, and return, and return and return … and as bad as the movie gets, we won’t be able to walk out of the theater.