La Niña 2025: An anomaly that shakes the planet
In early 2024, NOAA climatologists sound the alarm: after three years of an unprecedented La Niña – dubbed “triple dip” by the scientific community – the global climate balance remains unstable. Usually, a La Niña phase lasts between 9 and 12 months and returns every two to seven years. But between 2020 and 2023, the Pacific plunged into a triple cold sequence, a rare event that upset established models. Result: deadly droughts in the southern United States, torrential rains in Australia and impacts on global crops, from wheat to coffee.
Yet, in the face of this chaos, the scientific consensus wavers. La Niña 2025 is no longer simply a natural cycle: it embodies the uncertainty of climate science, where each forecast collides with poorly understood oceans and limited numerical models. According to renowned oceanographer Carl Wunsch, “Any long or medium term climate prediction remains outside the field of science” (source: climato-realistes.fr). Researchers admit their perplexity at the scale and duration of the phenomenon, questioning their own tools. La Niña 2025 therefore promises to be the ultimate test for the credibility of climate forecasts.
The consequences are not limited to the weather: La Niña 2025 affects food security, water management and even geopolitical stability. Global agricultural markets are weakened, rural populations are hit hard by these variations. The UN warns of an increased risk of famines if such anomalies persist (source: https://www.un.org/fr/climatechange). This situation requires critical reflection on our dependence on climate models and the need to strengthen the resilience of societies in the face of uncertainty.
Understanding the “triple dip”: La Niña and the crisis of predictability
La Niña is the cold phase of the ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) cycle, which modulates temperatures and precipitation on a global scale. During a La Niña, the trade winds blow stronger, pushing warm waters to the west of the Pacific and bringing up cold surface waters in the east. Immediate consequence: the global climate is disrupted, with major effects on cyclones, monsoons and agricultural seasons.
But what intrigues scientists today is the successive appearance of three La Niñas in a row between 2020 and 2023. This “triple dip” is all the more destabilizing as it does not obey known cycles. The models, even the most sophisticated, saw nothing coming. According to NOAA, we will have to wait until January 2025 to know the true face of the next La Niña, but the first scenarios remain widely divergent (source: https://www.tameteo.com/actualites/actualite/les-scientifiques-font-leur-premiere-prevision-de-la-nina-a-partir-du-9-janvier-2025-a-quoi-faut-il-s-attendre-climat.html).
The question of climate propaganda then resurfaces. Some accuse international agencies of overinterpreting these anomalies to justify the climate emergency or promote restrictive policies. But the reality is more complex: climate science, far from being univocal, navigates in an ocean of uncertainties. La Niña 2025 emerges as a revealer of our limits to understand and predict nature.
Triple dip and global impacts
The impacts of the triple dip La Niña are not fiction: record floods in Asia, forest fires in South America, water crises in East Africa… IPCC scientists themselves acknowledge that the sequence of La Niña has exacerbated some recent disasters (source: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/). Yet, they struggle to explain why this cyclical pattern suddenly went awry. The debate rages: is it a simple natural variability, or does human intervention – via global warming – amplify these extremes? The answer remains open.
La Niña 2025: towards what scenarios and what solutions?
In the face of the failure of past forecasts, what lessons can be learned for La Niña 2025? First, admit scientific humility: no modeling can perfectly predict the upheavals of the ENSO. Then, strengthen international cooperation to refine oceanographic surveillance and share data in real time. Transparency must prevail, far from dogmas and political recoveries.
For vulnerable populations, the urgency is to adapt: agricultural diversification, early warning systems, integrated water management. Solutions exist, carried by NGOs and citizen collectives, often more responsive than institutions. Finally, it is vital to invest in fundamental research on the oceans, this “hidden continent” that holds the key to our climatic future.
La Niña 2025 is neither a fatality, nor a simple communication tool: it is a scientific, ethical and political challenge. It is up to us, the climate generation, to demand the truth, to demand resources and to refuse fatalism. The story of La Niña is being written now, in the street as well as in the labs. Let’s get involved.
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Sources
https://www.climato-realistes.fr/le-recent-triple-dip-la-nina-bouleverse-la-c…
https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/meteorologie-nina-deja-ter…
https://www.tameteo.com/actualites/actualite/les-scientifiques-font-leur-prem…
https://www.un.org/fr/climatechange
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/enso-update-2024
https://www.climato-realistes.fr/le-recent-triple-dip-la-nina-bouleverse-la-c…
https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete/actualites/meteorologie-nina-deja-ter…
https://www.tameteo.com/actualites/actualite/les-scientifiques-font-leur-prem…
https://www.un.org/fr/climatechange
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/enso-update-2024
