An El Nino is declared by scientists once sea surface temperatures in a key area of the Pacific run 0.5C above average.
And since the temperatures are already well over 2C above normal, the latest Met Office forecasts suggest the anomaly could exceed 3C.
This is unprecedented in records going back to 1950, and probably the strongest since the 19th century. Water 8C above normal at a depth of 100m could supercharge it further.
What El Nino means for the UK
El Nino recurs every two to seven years, when Pacific trade winds weaken and warm water spreads east, releasing heat into the atmosphere.
With below-average monsoon rains in India and suppressed Atlantic hurricane activity, there is growing evidence that those shifts have begun.
"We have many months to go while this event continues to develop," said Dr Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, "and that's one of the reasons that we have increased confidence that this will be a record-setting event", Prof Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the Met Office said.
How the El Nino conditions developed
According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), El Nino conditions are now under way in the tropical Pacific.
The agency said that “El Nino conditions developed over the past month, as shown by above-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) across the central to eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean”.
As a sign that the atmosphere is now responding to the warmer ocean, not just the ocean warming on its own, NOAA has also seen the winds above the equatorial Pacific begin to shift.
The biggest concern about what El Nino is and why could it mean record temperatures is that all this is happening on an already much hotter planet.
According to Prof Adam Scaife, “we do need to worry about the impacts”.
“The current El Nino is… riding on top of a substantial amount of global warming.”
“This means that the actual temperatures in affected regions could well be unprecedented, as the warming from El Nino is being topped up by climate change.”
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