An El Niño climate pattern will likely develop later this year, which could exacerbate global warming and break temperature records around the world, forecasters from the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday.

The United Nations agency said it cannot yet forecast the strength or duration of the El Niño, but according to its outlook, there is a 60% chance that the El Niño will form between May and July and an 80% chance it will form between July and September.

Petteri Taalas, the secretary general of the WMO, in a news release said the Earth just experienced the eight warmest years on record, despite a cooling La Niña event over the past three years that acted as a temporary brake on global temperature rise.

“The development of an El Niño will most likely lead to a new spike in global heating and increase the chance of breaking temperature records,” Taalas said. He added the event is also associated with increased drought or rainfall in different parts of the world.

An El Niño has the opposite effects on weather and climate patterns than a La Niña. Both weather patterns result from variations in ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific and are part of an intermittent cycle known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO.

An El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern associated with warmer-than-normal ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. El Niño events are typically associated with increased rainfall in parts of southern South America, the southern U.S., the Horn of Africa and central Asia. But they can also cause severe droughts in Australia, Indonesia, and parts of southern Asia.

In the Atlantic Ocean, the El Niño has typically hindered tropical cyclone development and prompted less intense hurricane seasons. During the Boreal summer, however, the El Niño’s warm water can fuel hurricanes in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean.

An El Niño event typically lasts nine months to 12 months and on average occurs every two to seven years, the WMO said. It often peaks in December and January, the forecasters said, and its impact on global temperatures typically plays out in the year following its arrival.

According to WMO’s State of the Global Climate reports, 2016 is the warmest year on record due to the “double whammy” of a powerful El Niño event and human-caused climate change.

Source: cnbc.com