Turkish scientist warns of extended heatwave due to El Nino impact

By Gulseli Kenarli

ISTANBUL (AA) – 2023 was the hottest year on record due to the El Nino effect, said a Turkish climate scientist, expecting that temperature records are likely to continue through the summer of 2024.

Climate change and global warming have caused the 10 hottest years on record between 2010 and 2022. With the influence of El Nino, 2023, which saw temperature records broken on 179 days, became the hottest year on record.

Speaking to Anadolu, Levent Kurnaz, the head of Bogazici University's Center for Climate Change and Policy Studies in Istanbul, said El Nino causes average temperatures around the world to rise, and this has led to even higher temperatures already.

The term El Nino refers to a warming of the ocean surface, or above-average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

Kurnaz also said that extreme weather events have become more frequent and more severe in parallel with atmospheric warming and that El Nino has exacerbated the intensity of both heat and rainfall. This is why about half of 2023 was marked by temperature records.

"2023 was the hottest year that humanity has ever experienced. We have not experienced a year this hot in the past 125,000 years. Especially in the second half of the year, from July onwards, the El Nino effect also came into play and temperatures began to rise well above normal. The previous hottest years were 2016 and 2020, which were also affected by El Nino. “2023 is far ahead of both. It seems that we are passing the target of 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is often discussed in the Paris Agreement, this year,” he said.

He underlined the urgency of the situation by mentioning the extreme weather events, citing the flood disaster in Libya's Derna city last year as the "most extreme weather event" of 2023. Kurnaz said that El Nino brings unexpected events and intensifies the anticipated ones.

Kurnaz emphasized that the effects of El Nino will continue in 2024, and warned that this will lead to continued severe weather events and high temperatures.

Türkiye and Europe will undergo a severe heatwave until the middle of next summer, extending the period of record-breaking temperatures, he said.

“We expect this to continue for at least until March and April. It is not possible to quickly predict El Nino. It is not easy to say what will happen in June from today, but predictions say that El Nino will become increasingly severe. The probability that the El Nino we are experiencing is the most severe we have seen so far is over 50%,” he said.

The climate expert also touched upon Türkiye's water needs, hoping for a wetter winter and spring to alleviate the effects of the previous dry years on agriculture and water resources.