As a potentially record-breaking El Niño begins, scientists are engaged in a heated debate about whether climate change is increasing the intensity of this phenomenon. This discussion has wide-reaching implications for extreme weather and costly disasters worldwide.

El Niño occurs naturally every few years, elevating global temperatures. The current El Niño has just started and is expected to persist through 2027. Researchers believe this version could break records, and observe that recent El Niño events have been notably strong amid rising global temperatures. The series of powerful El Niños since the 1980s is unusual compared to data from the past 600 years.

Some scientists propose that climate change is intensifying El Niño, while others argue there is no definitive evidence. Kim Cobb, a climate scientist and director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, notes that this question is highly contested due to its significant importance.

The mystery may take years to unravel as more data becomes available. Understanding this issue is vital since El Niños globally disrupt weather patterns in often devastating ways, elevating temperatures and increasing the likelihood of droughts and floods. These events represent ocean anomalies, and if climate change enlarges these anomalies, the result would be more chaos and damage.