FEATURE STORY PREDICTING THE UNCERTAIN FUTURE 100 Years of Climate Change By Jeana Cadby, Associate Vice President, Environment and Climate
Expect the unexpected. This is the message that climatologists have been repeating over the past few years. Well, that, and the word of the season: anomalous (which essentially means, “whoa, didn’t see that coming”). Over the past few years, California has experienced several record-breaking events: “hottest night on record,” the “first-ever tropical storm” and most recently, a “Super El Niño.” Is all of this the new normal, or can modern tools allow us to predict the future? What Even is a Super El Niño? A normal El Niño is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), where a warm swell of water moves eastward, suppressing cool water upwelling along the coast, among other interruptions to typical ocean patterns. Usually, this injection of energy (warm water) increases the odds of above-normal winter precipitation across the southern U.S. Massive amounts of ocean heat releasing into the atmosphere increases air temperatures, resulting in the year following a Super El Niño peak being, historically, almost always the hottest year on record. The catchy term “Super El Niño” essentially refers to a “very strong” El Niño event and is characterized by above-average ocean temperatures of an added 2 C (3.6 F) or more. When ocean temperatures spike this drastically, we can expect rising sea levels, and the increased frequency and intensity of storms. So far, climate scientists predict an overwhelming probability that 2027 will eclipse all prior records to become the warmest year ever observed. Notably, warming from El Niño paired with warming from climate change is additive. This El Niño’s temporary atmospheric warming influence (+0.2 C to 0.4 C) will occur atop an existing (and essentially permanent) +1.4 to 1.5 C baseline global warming. California is
42 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com October – December 2026
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