What to expect from La Niña

The document describes La Niña as the cool phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, characterized by the movement of cold water to the central and eastern Pacific surface. For 2024, there is an 85% chance of a transition to neutral conditions between April and June, and a 60% chance of La Niña developing by June to August. The text highlights that multi-year La Niña events are increasing in frequency, with five of the last ten occurring in the past 25 years. While La Niña temporarily lowers global average surface temperatures by about 0.1C, it does not offset human-caused warming; recent La Niña years have been among the top 10 hottest years ever. Regional impacts include drier conditions in East Africa and the southern US, and wetter conditions in Southeast Asia, India, and northern South America, affecting various crop yields and increasing the risk of floods and droughts.

• Human-induced climate change is considered at least partially responsible for the increased frequency and variability of extreme La Nia events.
• La Nia provides a temporary cooling of approximately 0.1C to the earth's average surface temperature, but this is insufficient to offset the 1.36C rise since industrial times; consequently, 2024 is expected to be one of the top five hottest years on record despite the upcoming La Nia.
• La Nia is associated with specific regional weather trends: drier conditions in East Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania), the southern/southeastern US, and parts of South America (southern Brazil, Uruguay, northern Argentina, southern Bolivia); and wetter conditions in eastern South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, northern/eastern Australia, Southeast Asia, India, and northern South America (northern Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela).
• The 2020-2023 'triple-dip' La Nia was one of the strongest in the last 50 years and caused severe impacts, including a major food security crisis in the Horn of Africa and flooding in northern Australia and Pakistan.

APA

Team, Z. (2024). What to expect from La Niña. Zero Carbon Analytics. https://zerocarbon-analytics.org/science/what-to-expect-from-la-nina/

Chicago

Team, ZCA. What to expect from La Niña. Zero Carbon Analytics, 2024. https://zerocarbon-analytics.org/science/what-to-expect-from-la-nina/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Team |first1=ZCA |title=What to expect from La Niña |publisher=Zero Carbon Analytics |date=14 May 2024 |url=https://zerocarbon-analytics.org/science/what-to-expect-from-la-nina/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{team2024what, author = {Team, ZCA}, title = {{What to expect from La Niña}}, institution = {Zero Carbon Analytics}, year = {2024}, month = may, url = {https://zerocarbon-analytics.org/science/what-to-expect-from-la-nina/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }