Earlier this year, it looked like an epic El Niño was brewing. The eastern tropical Pacific subsurface was showing signs of intense warming that seemed poised to erupt into a major El Niño event. Early signs were looking like this may be an historic – or maybe near-historic – event. The latest signs, however, make this seem a little less likely.
That a strong (or rather, historically strong) El Niño doesn’t look as likely is certainly important. Scientists are happy when the expected happens; this means the world is working as we believe it should, that models are accurately predicting the future,that our understanding is improving. When the unexpected happens, however, scientists are (or should be) absolutely ecstatic! Science – well, good science – thrives on the unexpected. “Huh… that looks weird…” is the beginning of many good scientific investigations.
