Scientists warn that one of the strongest El Nino events on record could intensify global heat, disrupt agriculture and trigger extreme weather events
From time to time, ocean winds shift and the central and eastern Pacific Ocean experiences a heatwave. The phenomenon, known as El Nino, occurs naturally roughly every three to seven years.
But this year’s El Nino is shaping up to be one of the strongest on record and could arrive as the world is already experiencing some of the hottest temperatures in recorded history as a result of human-driven climate change.
Over the years, El Nino patterns have led to intense flooding in some parts of the world, while other areas, including some of the planet’s most important agricultural lands, have faced drought. Already, countries are preparing for food shortages.
While it is not possible to know exactly how this El Nino will affect global weather patterns, experts are making dire predictions about what the next couple of years might bring.
Historically, the phenomenon has led to wetter conditions in parts of the Americas while raising the risk of intense dryness in South and Southeast Asia, southern Africa and Australia.
This kind of weather pattern usually also reduces the chances of a strong hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean. On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its annual hurricane forecast, which called for below-normal activity because of El Nino.
There is no evidence that climate change increases the frequency or intensity of El Ninos. But the extra heat can exacerbate the conditions brought on by global warming. “A warmer ocean and atmosphere increase the availability of energy and moisture for extreme weather events such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall,” according to the World Meteorological Organisation.
The strongest El Ninos of the past 50 years raised global temperatures by 2 degrees Celsius or more above the norm. This year, forecasters are predicting that the burst of warmth could push global temperatures up by an unprecedented 3 degrees Celsius.
An El Nino in the late 1700s might have played a role in the crop failures that contributed to uprisings during the French Revolution. And in 1877 and 1878, a famine fuelled by El Nino killed millions of people across the tropics. Last year, a study that analysed 160 famines in Europe from 1500 to 1800 found that 40 per cent of the famine onsets were associated with El Nino.
More recent episodes have also wreaked havoc. El Ninos brought severe floods to southern Brazil in 1982-83, drought to Colombia in 1997-98, and below-normal rainfall and wildfires in the Amazon in 2015-16.
The most recent 2023-24 El Nino was not as strong as its predecessors, but it still dried up rivers in the Amazon basin while leading to catastrophic flooding in Brazil’s southernmost state, displacing half a million people. This El Nino is just gathering strength, and the effects will play out over the next year. Many forecasters are predicting that 2027 will be the hottest year on record.
Harlan reported that Indian officials had already held meetings to prepare, and that experts said grain supplies and improved food distribution would mitigate the risk of famine.
But a combination of other factors may make the heat pouring out of the Pacific especially disruptive this time.
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz after the US and Israeli war against Iran has throttled many countries’ access to fuel and fertiliser. And then there is the fact that the planet is already hotter than at almost any time in recorded history.
“What makes it so dramatic is not the event itself and whether it’s a ‘Super El Nino’ or not, but that it is happening in a dramatically changing climate,” Friederike Otto, professor in climate science at Imperial College London, told Climate Home News.
