More than 60 million people worldwide will be affected… Japan will be hit by extreme weather this summer due to the occurrence of a “Super El Nino”.

This summer, a historic disaster may strike the world: on June 9, the Japan Meteorological Agency announced the onset of the El Niño phenomenon.

El Niño is a phenomenon triggered by a rise in sea surface temperatures off the coast of Peru, which are normally low, by about 0.5°C above normal. It has a major impact on the world’s weather, causing droughts in the southern foothills of the Himalayas and heavy rainfall in the western foothills of the Andes Mountains.

The El Niño phenomenon is said to be the “source of abnormal weather,” but what is frightening is that there is an extremely high possibility that it will develop into a “Super El Niño phenomenon,” one of the strongest in history.

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, sea surface temperatures off the coast of Peru are expected to rise 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius this year. A “super El Nino phenomenon” is one in which sea surface temperatures rise 2.0°C or more, and has only been recorded four times in recorded history. The mechanism by which an ordinary El Nino phenomenon develops into a “super El Nino” has not yet been clarified, but global warming is believed to be a contributing factor.

Since it was first observed in 1972, the most recent El Niño event occurred in ’15-’16.

In India, the temperature reached 51.0°C, the highest in the country’s history, while in East Africa, particularly in Ethiopia and Somalia, floods caused by torrential rains resulted in severe food shortages for more than 11 million people. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), infectious diseases such as cholera and malaria also broke out, mainly in Africa, causing health problems for at least 60 million people worldwide.

Japan is no exception to the effects of abnormal weather. One area of concern is the coming of super typhoons. Akira Mori, a weather forecaster and president of Weathermap, a weather information company, says, “El Niño will cause the Pacific Ocean to become a red hot zone.

During El Niño, sea surface temperatures east of the equatorial Pacific, off the coast of Peru, tend to rise above normal, while temperatures west of the equator, off the coast of the Philippines, tend to fall. This year, however, sea surface temperatures off the Philippines have remained high, and the high-temperature area has rather spread eastward. This has made it easier for typhoons to form over a wide area. Also, since the Pacific High does not extend out to cover the entire Japanese archipelago, typhoons that do develop have a higher probability of taking a route that hits Japan directly instead of heading toward the Chinese mainland.”

The Bay of Bengal in the northeastern Indian Ocean is also experiencing anomalies. Mr. Mori continues.

The sea surface temperature in the Bay of Bengal is showing a tendency to drop. This is making it easier for air containing water vapor to flow into the waters off the Philippines, strengthening the elements that produce giant typhoons. The point is how much the force of the typhoon will diminish before it reaches Japan. If sea surface temperatures are high close to Japan, it is quite possible that it will strike with strong force.

In fact, in the summer of 2003, when the super El Niño phenomenon occurred, “killer typhoons” such as Typhoon No. 15, which killed and injured 148 people mainly in Kyushu, and Typhoon No. 18, which killed eight people mainly in the northern Kanto region and caused the Kinugawa River to burst its banks, hit the country.

It would not be surprising if we see typhoons of the same class as the super typhoons that have come in the past, or even bigger. When other typhoons approach the rainy season front or the autumn rain front, they send large amounts of moist air into the front, causing linear precipitation zones that bring heavy rainfall to occur all over the place. This summer, in addition to the usual extreme heat, we must also prepare for super typhoons and record-breaking rainfall,” said Mori.

The Super El Niño phenomenon brings abnormal weather that defies common sense. The “X-Day” is approaching every minute.

From the July 14-21, 2023 issue of FRIDAY