By Desiree Salas (staff@latinospost.com) | First Posted: Feb 11, 2014 04:59 AM EST

A report made public in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) revealed that there is a 75-percent chance that an El Niño weather event will happen this year, Time magazine said.

In a similar report noted by Reuters, the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) in the U.S. also announced that temperature changes "portend warming in the coming months" after spring.

Bloomberg has also reported last month that the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia also predicts an "El Niño weather pattern" in the upcoming months. Considering the fact that it's been nearly five years since the said phenomenon occurred, it can be said that it's about time that it occurred again. El Niño happens every two to seven years.

This weather phenomenon is characterized by the warming of the Pacific and can "affect weather worldwide and can roil agricultural markets as farmers contend with drought or too much rain," Bloomberg said.

"Less spring rainfall for the east coast would be the major concern for Australia. It increases the chance that we're not going to get trend wheat yields, that would be one of the risks. The other one would be on livestock, where you'd have lower pasture growth," explained Paul Deane of Melbourne-based Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.

"Most climate models surveyed by the bureau suggest the tropical Pacific Ocean will warm through the southern autumn and winter. Some, but not all, models predict this warming may approach El Nino thresholds by early winter."

Researcher have also said that a fierce El Niño late in 2014 can make 2015 "a record year for global temperatures."

According to a Erwin Eka Syaphputra, Climate Early Warning Unit head at Indionesia's meteorology agency, the last El Niño happened in 2009. Like the other experts, he also believed that the said phenomenon may happen again as soon as this year. 

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