Although 2016 is likely to be the warmest year since global weather record keeping began, 2017 is likely to be a bit cooler with the demise of the El Niño weather pattern, scientists told Reuters. “Next year is probably going to be cooler than 2016,” said Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia in Britain.
A powerful El Niño in 1998 helped set a global record for heat that stood until 2005, allowing skeptics to challenge whether climate change was occurring. “The long-term trend is towards warming but there is natural variability, so there are ups and downs,” said Jean-Noel Thepaut of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. If 2017 is cooler, scientists “will have again to explain what is happening,” he said.
Glen Peters, of the Center for International Climate and Energy Research, said the scientific community was “not gearing up for a new ‘hiatus’ event.” At a summit last December in Paris, world leaders agreed on their most comprehensive effort yet to shift away from fossil fuels to mitigate the impact of climate change, which is expected to mean higher average temperatures, more severe storms and rising sea levels.