If you think you have heard enough about the growing “super” El Niño, trust me, you are going to hear a lot more. What is happening in the equatorial Pacific is jaw-dropping and could well mark one of the biggest global weather upheavals in a millennium. It will spawn a string of weather catastrophes around our world in what remains of this year and in 2027, and there is no reason to think the UK will be immune.

To recap briefly, El Niño involves a heating of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific ocean. It happens every few years and is part of a natural cycle termed the El Niño southern oscillation, which switches between warm (El Niño) and cool (La Niña) phases. El Niños that see heating reach or exceed 2C are defined as “super” but this one, which is forecast to top-out at an astonishing 4C later this year, is so much bigger, the term “hyper” might be more appropriate.

El Niño is nothing new. Evidence for its existence extends back hundreds of millions of years and its ramifications have always been negative and disruptive. The difference today is that it is happening at a time when our world is heating more rapidly than ever before, and it is being supercharged as a result, leading to increasingly extreme weather.

Figuring out how much global heating alone is influencing El Niño is not straightforward, as its strength and other characteristics change naturally over time. Both El Niños and La Niñas, for example, have been steadily increasing in duration over the last 7,000 years. This is bad news in its own right, as it means the world’s weather is knocked out of kilter for even........

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