An El Niño is currently underway, and the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is warning that it could threaten lives and devastate agriculture in parts of the world. The global weather phenomenon is when the waters of the Pacific Ocean become much warmer than usual. After three years of cold La Niña weather, El Niño has now returned and is expected to last until at least the first half of 2024, according to the latest United Nations forecasts. Temperature records have already been broken, and El Niño could push the world to a new average temperature record. “El Niño is commonly associated with record temperatures at a global level. Whether this will happen in 2023 or 2024 is not yet known, but I think it is more likely,” says Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. (Rebecca Ann Hughes with the agency  Reuters)