It’s looking increasingly likely that the Super El Niño is on our doorstep. Photo: Matt Paul Catalano//Unsplash
Scientists are becoming increasingly confident that not only will El Niño soon form, but it’s likely to be one of the strongest — if not the strongest — ever on record. While exactly how El Niños behave has been getting harder to predict with climate change, the last time the Earth experienced one this strong, it killed millions.
An article in The Washington Post highlighted just how strong this weather pattern could be, drawing parallels to the strongest El Niño ever recorded in 1877. That 19th-century event sparked a global famine that killed three to four percent of the world’s population — more than 50 million people — devastating regions like India, China, and Brazil.
“Simultaneous multiyear droughts similar to those in the 1870s could happen again,” Deepti Singh, an associate professor at Washington State University, told The Washington Post. “What is different now is that our atmosphere and oceans are substantially warmer than they were in the 1870s, which means the associated extremes could be more extreme.”
The article notes that, even if this El Niño does become the strongest on record, it’s not necessarily a reason to panic because “the social, political, and economic factors that exacerbated the effects (in the 1870s) don’t currently exist.”
That said, extreme weather patterns could still affect food supply and disrupt economic activity. It’s estimated that the 1997 El Niño resulted in between $32 billion and $96 billion of loss. Plus, technology now allows for advanced prediction of the long-term weather patterns, something that wasn’t widely available until the 1980s.
Singh stresses that cooperation between countries will be key to mitigating severe weather impacts.
