Record warm ocean surface temperatures in tandem with El Niño in the Pacific Ocean are driving severe weather that is leaving a trail of destruction from the U.S. to Australia, Britain and Latin America, experts said Monday. El Niño “has allowed more moisture to enter the atmosphere through evaporation,” Bob Hensen, a meteorologist and climate blogger for Weather Underground, said. “We’ve had a series of very warm, moist air masses moving up from the tropics. That’s part of what’s fueled the storms and flooding in the South, record warmth in the East and some of the U.K.’s storms.” El Niño typically lasts for a few months, and “we’re right in the middle of that right now,” he said. El Niño is a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific. Among its effects are an increase in moist air rising and moving east and north, which […]