[00:00] This summer might get very hot. In the past month,&nbsp; we've seen a lot of headlines about the long-term&nbsp;&nbsp; weather forecasts that are suggesting it's not&nbsp; going to be nice. We're heading into a super El&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:13] Nino with a 100% chance. The headlines say it's&nbsp; not just an inconvenience that'll drive up your&nbsp;&nbsp; electricity bill. It might cause widespread famine&nbsp; in Africa and more wildfires. What's going on? And&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:27] how much do we actually know? I have a brief&nbsp; summary. Global average temperatures have been&nbsp;&nbsp; rising with the carbon dioxide content of our&nbsp; atmosphere. But it's not a steady increase. The&nbsp;&nbsp; temperature has a lot of fluctuations from year&nbsp; to year. There are many factors which contribute&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:43] to this. Volcano eruptions, wildfires and land&nbsp; use changes, changes in solar radiation and cloud&nbsp;&nbsp; cover and so on. But one of the most relevant&nbsp; contributions to the fluctuations is the El Nino&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:56] southern oscillation, ENSO for short. Enso is a&nbsp; fluctuation on the scale of several years and it&nbsp;&nbsp; affects how much heat is stored in the oceans.&nbsp; Sometimes the oceans contain a lot of heat and&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:09] less in the atmosphere and sometimes it's the&nbsp; other way around. The oceans give off heat and&nbsp;&nbsp; that gives some extra warming to the atmosphere.&nbsp; In such years when the ocean gives off heat,&nbsp;&nbsp; the average global temperatures spark particularly&nbsp; high. El Nino is the warmest of the Enzo phases&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:27] and it typically lasts 9 to 12 months. This is&nbsp; why El Nino is one of the most relevant factors&nbsp;&nbsp; for long range weather forecasts. It doesn't just&nbsp; affect the average temperature. It also affects&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:40] rainfall patterns and with that phases of drought,&nbsp; heat waves, fires, and extreme events across big&nbsp;&nbsp; parts of the world. The world's meteorological&nbsp; organizations keep close track of the patterns&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:53] that tell them when the Enzo is changing by&nbsp; measuring things like ocean temperatures,&nbsp;&nbsp; especially in the Pacific, and wind speeds. The&nbsp; news is now that the forecasts predict that we're&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:05] likely to soon switch into an El Nino phase. These&nbsp; forecasts come from places like the US American&nbsp;&nbsp; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,&nbsp; Noah, the World Meteorological Organization,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:18] and the ECMWF. That's the European Center&nbsp; for Medium Rage Weather Forecasts. Range,&nbsp;&nbsp; I meant range. They all agreed that there is&nbsp; a high chance. Noah puts it at 82% chance that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:33] El Nino will begin sometime between May and&nbsp; July 2026. and then a more than 90% chance of&nbsp;&nbsp; it continuing through December 2026 to February&nbsp; 2027. The extra warming from El Nino will go on&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:48] top of the global warming that we've already seen.&nbsp; And the thing is that the El Nino phases are not&nbsp;&nbsp; always equally strong. If they are particularly&nbsp; strong, the extra warming is particularly high.&nbsp;&nbsp; And the world's best forecasts now give a high&nbsp; chance that El Nino will be particularly strong&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:05] this year, which has also been called a super El&nbsp; Nino. Just how high the risk is of that happening&nbsp;&nbsp; depends somewhat on the model. Earlier this&nbsp; month, the ECMWF did an ensemble forecast. This&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:20] means they run the model multiple times with&nbsp; initial data that are within the uncertainty&nbsp;&nbsp; range. They found that now 100% of their model&nbsp; runs predict a superel in you. The temperature&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:33] normally on the yaxis here is not the global&nbsp; surface temperature but the surface temperature&nbsp;&nbsp; in a part of the Pacific Ocean that's particularly&nbsp; predictive for a nino. This recent ECMWF forecast&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:46] is the main reason for the headlines. But no 2&nbsp; puts the probability at roughly 2/3 that it's&nbsp;&nbsp; going to be a strong or very strong El Nino. And&nbsp; the Australian Bureau of Meteorology says somewhat&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:59] vaguely that their model suggests an event that&nbsp; will likely be at least moderate in strength with&nbsp;&nbsp; the possibility of a strong event. This makes some&nbsp; people nervous because of the super El Nino which&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:11] lasted from 1876 to 1878. It brought an era of&nbsp; global drought and famine which affected India,&nbsp;&nbsp; China, Brazil, Southern Africa, North Africa&nbsp; and parts of North America. An estimated 30&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:25] to 60 million people died which at the time was&nbsp; about 2 to 4% of the entire world population. And&nbsp;&nbsp; today we're in a situation where many countries,&nbsp; especially in Africa, are already close to famine.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:38] Now it must be added that the 1876 Supra&nbsp; Nino catastrophe was not just caused by&nbsp;&nbsp; the climate conditions. It was also caused by&nbsp; colonial policy affecting food availability,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:50] inefficient agriculture and lack of global support&nbsp; systems. Then again today we have aggravating&nbsp;&nbsp; factors too such as the war in Iran that's causing&nbsp; supply chain problems with fertilizer and more&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:02] generally that nobody really cares how many&nbsp; people die in Africa. Somewhat closer to home,&nbsp;&nbsp; the El Nino events actually don't affect the&nbsp; weather in Europe all that much because our&nbsp;&nbsp; next D ocean is the Atlantic, not the Pacific. It&nbsp; does, however, affect the US West Coast where it's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:19] likely to be a nasty season. Sorry, California. In&nbsp; any case, my summaries of the headlines are mostly&nbsp;&nbsp; right. The world isn't going to end, but it'll&nbsp; be a difficult summer for big parts of Africa,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:31] Southern Asia, and Australia. And the US is&nbsp; likely to suffer through more heat waves. So,&nbsp;&nbsp; the good news is the models mostly agree. The&nbsp; bad news is they agree in the way doctors agree&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:43] when they mumble. Interesting case. Before you&nbsp; go, here's a challenge. I've been trying Matiks,&nbsp;&nbsp; which is a mobile app for quick one&nbsp; minute mind sport duels against real&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:56] people. I thought it would be a good idea to&nbsp; train my aging brain. And let's be honest,&nbsp;&nbsp; YouTube isn't the place. On Matiks, you pick a&nbsp; format, get matched with someone at your rating,&nbsp;&nbsp; and then it's a race against the clock.&nbsp; There are formats for math, memory, puzzles,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:12] and classical challenges including Blitz, Mind&nbsp; Snap, KenKen, and Math Maze. It's fast enough to&nbsp;&nbsp; play in a spare minute, but because it's against a&nbsp; real person, it's got a nice human and competitive&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:25] angle. Matrix also has streaks, ratings, leagues,&nbsp; and daily puzzles and leaderboards, so you can&nbsp;&nbsp; see how you're doing and compare scores with&nbsp; others. You can also add friends, play together,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:38] or compete directly. I honestly enjoy these&nbsp; little games because for once I feel like I'm&nbsp;&nbsp; doing something useful with my phone. So download&nbsp; Matiks and challenge yourself. The links at the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:52] top of the description and there's a QR code on&nbsp; the screen. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow.