What a record-breaking El Nino could mean for the world

It's already bringing drought and wildfires to parts of the world, and scientists say things are about to get more extreme. The UK Met Office expects the biggest El Nino in living memory, with Pacific sea temperatures forecast to rise three degrees this year. That's a degree higher than what's already considered a major event. We're already, in August, at sort of two degrees in the El Nino, and that is itself, you know, unprecedented. And we're still, you know, the El Nino peaks in November, December time, so we've still got two or three or four months to go. El Nino is a warm phase of the Pacific Ocean's natural cycle that appears every two to seven years, where trade winds that typically push warm water west weaken, or even reverse, pushing it right back east. It shifts weather patterns worldwide, bringing drought to some regions and heavy rain to others. The effects are already showing. Wildfires have burned nearly 95,000 hectares of land in Indonesia in July alone, and the number of vessels allowed through the Panama Canal are set to be limited due to drought. Persistent rain in Peru and Chile, meanwhile, has caused dangerous mudslides. We know that the El Nino phenomenon will be a very difficult time for our country. El Nino also pushes up global temperatures. The Met Office says it's likely to mean 2027 will be the hottest year on record. There's little evidence to suggest that climate change increases the frequency or strength of El Nino events, though this is an ongoing area of debate among scientists. What's clear, however, is that El Nino is now happening in a warmer world than ever before, making its impact on the weather more extreme.