Paper detail

Very early warning signal for El Niño in 2020 with a 4 in 5 likelihood

The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most important driver of climate variability and can trigger extreme weather events and disasters in various parts of the globe. Recently we have developed a network approach, which allows forecasting an El Niño event about 1 year ahead. Here we communicate that since 2012 this network approach, which does not involve any fit parameter, correctly predicted the absence of El Niño events in 2012, 2013 and 2017 as well as the onset of the large El Niño event that started in 2014 and ended in 2016. Our model also correctly forecasted the onset of the last El Niño event in 2018. In September 2019, the model indicated the return of El Niño in 2020 with an 80% probability.