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Right now, it looks like we're on pace for a very large El Niño this fall or winter. Quite possibly one of the strongest on record. Based on past experience, that could potentially bring much-needed rain in California, but also drought in Australia, destructive floods in
Peru, and so on. A strong El Niño could also help make 2015 and
2016 some of the hottest years ever recorded. It'd be a very big deal.
The last truly massive El Niño appeared in 1997-'98 and ended up causing an estimated $35 billion in destruction and 23,000 deaths around the world. Now we may be on the verge of a similar-size event:
Early-August status of the 1997 and 2015 El NIño events. Satellite imagery shows the departure from average sea-surface height for a given time of year, which is correlated with warmth in the upper ocean.
( NASA/JPL via Weather Underground )
That, in itself, is a surprise. Back in March, NOAA's Climate
Prediction Center announced that a weak El Niño had formed in the Pacific, but many experts initially thought it might just fizzle out in the summer. Instead, El Niño kept getting stronger, with ocean temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific continuing to soar. Some forecasters now think this could turn into one of the
1 I have used extensively the materials available online at http://www.vox.com/2015/8/17/9164499/elnino-2015 , an article published by and updated by Brad Plumer on August 17, 2015. The article has been extensively reviewed by eminent scientists who agreed with the conclusions of the author.

strongest El Niño events in memory when it peaks later this fall or winter.
"We’re predicting this El Niño could be among the strongest El
Niños in the historical record, dating back to 1950," said Mike
Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center, in a recent press call. We'll see if this latest forecast holds up.
If it does, countries across the globe will have to brace themselves.
In the past, major El Niño events have brought unusually hot, dry weather to Australia that can cramp wheat yields and amp up wildfires. It can bring hotter, drier weather to India that hurts agriculture. It can bring heavy rain and destructive flooding to
Peru, washing away houses and spreading cholera. In 1997, El Niño dried out Indonesia so badly that it led to huge forest fires whose smoke disrupted daily life in Singapore.
Yet El Niño isn't all bad. In the United States, it could potentially bring needed rain this winter to ease California's drought (though also mudslides and flooding). Historically, El Niño has also served up milder US winters and helped tamp down hurricanes in the
Atlantic Ocean.
One important caveat here is that every El Niño is a bit different
— and some have unexpected impacts. As NOAA's Emily Becker points out , strong El Niño events usually bring rain to California
(as in 1982-'83), but occasionally they don't (as in 1965-'66):

( NOAA Climate Prediction Center )
Another story to watch is whether a strong El Niño could help make 2015 or 2016 the hottest year on record. This one seems increasingly plausible.
Global temperatures are already going up over time, thanks to all the carbon dioxide we're adding to the atmosphere. According to
NASA, 2014 was already the hottest year on record. But there was no El Niño that year — and El Niño years tend to be a bit hotter than average , as heat gets transferred from the ocean to the surface.
So the combination of El Niño and rising CO2 could help 2015 and even 2016 break records:

( NOAA )
Bottom line: There's still a lot of uncertainty here, but El Niño could very well be the biggest weather story of late 2015, with potentially far-reaching impacts.
Typical effects of an El Niño during the winter:
(NOAA)
A strong El Niño can weaken monsoons in the Indian Ocean, for example. It can also cause the jet stream to start stretching from the Eastern Pacific across the southern United States, bringing

rainfall and storms with it. Still, a lot depends on how strong the
El Niño actually is — and occasionally there are aberrations and exceptions to the rule. More on that below.
El Niño could help make 2015 or 2016 the hottest years on record
Thanks to global warming , the Earth's average surface temperature has been going up over time. But there's a lot of variation from year to year. El Niño years tend to be a bit hotter than average. La Niña years (when those trade winds strengthen rather than weaken) tend to be a bit cooler than average. Like so:
( NASA )
So what's going on here? As humans load more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we're trapping more and more heat on the Earth's surface. But more than 90 percent of that extra heat is absorbed by the oceans. So subtle interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere can make a big difference for surface temperatures.
When conditions in the Pacific are neutral, more of that heat is trapped beneath the ocean surface. When a strong El Niño forms, more of that heat is transferred to the surface. That's why the
Earth's average surface temperatures reached new highs in 1998: you had the combination of global warming and an extremely strong El Niño.

What was remarkable about 2014 is that it was likely the hottest year on record even without an El Niño event — a sign that Earth keeps getting warmer overall. Meanwhile, 2015 has so far been on track to be even hotter than 2014.
Now throw a potentially record-setting El Niño into the mix, and we're looking at a potential shattering of records. Back in January,
NASA's Gavin Schmidt explained at a press conference that temperatures typically peak about three months after an El Niño event. Given that forecasters expect this current El Niño to last until next spring, it's entirely possible we could see 2015 or 2016 break the temperature record. We'll have to wait and see.
Those who follow the arguments regarding “climate change” are well aware that opposing camps are deeply entrenched and defending their positions.
However when you look critically at the arguments presented the researcher finds that both positions proclaim climate change, some declaring the planet is warming while others strongly suggest the planet is cooling (few participants are found in no-man land between the two positions). The arguments all profess scientific fact as the basis for their position and each works just as diligently at trying to debunk the other’s position. I quietly assume the position that global warming is and will continue to rise for the next 60-80 decades based on articles such as you have just read and an analysis of the rate of global warming that has taken place since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Regardless of the reader’s position relative to the climate change arguments
I offer a subtle warning: change is happening at a continuous, however incremental rate. Neither you nor I will be affected by these changes to any magnitude but your children’s children, and their children, will faced an environment unlike our current conditions. We can help mitigate the changes, either voluntarily or through charges of law, but we must nonetheless recognize the inevitable and prepare for the change.
Timothy D. Blevins
CEO EarthWeb Foundation

26 August, 2015