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| An image from August shows far warmer than normal ocean waters in the eastern Pacific off the west coast of South America as El Nino takes hold. Since August, that water has gotten even hotter. |
Now El Nino is starting to make everything worse.
El Nino is now in full force,. Expect things to become especially wild for at least several months, well into next year. Since this is uncharted territory with a record El Nino atop climate change, who knows how this will sugar off?
A statement released last week by the World Meteorological Organization statement seems ominous:
"'El Nino is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: The planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up. Sea surface temperatures are rising, temperatures keep climbing, and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather. The race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people. We must win that race,' said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres."
The WMO added:
"El Nino is firmly established and will intensify into a very strong event in the coning months, with big impacts on rainfall and temperature patterns and associated risks of floods, drought and extreme heat, according to a new update."
But where? And how bad?
We don't know, exactly
It won't be armageddon, as some on social media breathlessly tell us. Many of us will be fine, just marveling at the weird, sometimes scary weather. I don't want to minimize the fact that it will be tragic for some of us.
And it will be expensive. Likely for all of us. Exactly what we end up with is still an open question, though we can forecast some of the broad brush effects.
WHAT EL NINO IS DOING
At first, it might seem like El Nino is doing some of us a favor. As mentioned in a previous post, the Atlantic hurricane season so far is as lame as can be. El Nino is creating strong upper level winds over the tropical Atlantic, killing off any nascent tropical storms that want to form.
A tropical storm or hurricane could still form between now and November, but we won't have many such storms.
The eastern Pacific ocean is another story. The eastern Pacific Ocean is alive with hurricanes. One of them, Lowell, sideswiped Hawaii earlier this week, causing extensive damage. It's the second time a hurricane had trashed parts of Hawaii.
El Nino pushes the warmest Pacific waters moved away from Asia and toward South America. The water becomes relatively cooler near Asia and Australia. Cooler water means less evaporation. And fewer showers and thunderstorms. Droughts result in southeast Asia and Australia. Destructive wildfires tend to break out in Indonesia and Australia.
It also tends to get dry in southern Africa, sub-Sahara Africa and Brazil during El Ninos. Wet areas are a little less certain, although the southern United States tend to get pretty wet and stormy, even including tornado outbreaks during the winter months of an El Nino.
NOAA is also telling us it will be a warmer than average winter along the northern tier of the United States, from the Pacific Northwest to New England, which is typical of an El Nino.
There's a bunch of wildcards, though. Other factors could bend the winter jet stream, at times defying the will of El Nino
"A strong El Nino can tilt the odds toward certain temperature and precipitation patterns across different parts of the U.S., but it doesn't determine exactly how every storm, or even the entire winter, will play out," said Crystal Egger, a meteorologist and president of Monarch Weather Consulting.
The Super El Nino could lead to immediate global financial losses of nearly $1 trillion dollars in 2027. and up to $7.2 trillion over the ensuing six years, according to a September 8 report from Oxford Economics As reported in supplychaiinbrai.com:
"Following extreme weather disruptions, both public and private sector funds are diverted toward reparations," Oxford Economics explain."While necessary, this expenditure restores lost production capacity rather than expanding it, which can crowed out investment in infrastructure upgrades, technology, education, R&D and so on."
The cost comes from everywhere, not just the physical damage. As supplychainbrain.com notes, these weather and climate disasters make it harder and more expensive to borrow money. Homeowners and businesses fall behind on loans. Damaged or devalued property becomes poorer collateral.
Insurance covers some losses, but those disaster make premiums more expensive and make coverage harder to find.
It's always difficult to calculate the cost of an event that hasn't really happened yet. So take the above figures with a grain of salt. Just know that every El Nina is expensive. This one will probably be more expensive than all the others.
Given all the unknowns, it's hard to prepare for El Nino, but people - and governments are trying anyway.
In Great Britain, residents have been urged to have enough food and water stored at home to survive a few days without power or water services
British Environmental Secretary Angela Eagle said El Nino could create ever more extreme storms than the already big storms the UK has seen in recent years.
"If you've got a store of a bit of food that can keep you going for awhile before the emergency services can get to you, you're going to be a lot better off than if you haven't. So some of it is that kind of preparation for just being a little more resilient," Eagle said.
Beyond that, we're not sure what will happen. There's a lot of hysterics about this El Nino. Some of it is justified. To be blunt, people will die, crops will fail, people will go hungry.
Until now, the strongest El Nino known to have occurred hit in 1877. Washington Post picks up the story:
"The (1877 El Nino) fueled conditions that led to a global famine which killed more than 50 million people across India, China, Brazil and elsewhere. That's 3 to 4 percent of the estimated global population at the time, equal to at least 250 million people if it happened today."
Could it happen again?
The world is much warmer than it was in 1877, thanks to climate change. So the effects of the 2026-27 El Nino would be more extreme than the world saw 150 years.
On the other hand, unlike in 1877, we know El Nino is coming. We have ways to prepare for droughts and extreme storms. Drought-prone areas can switch to dry tolerant crops. Resourced can be re-directed in advance to combat wildfires. Residents of the American South can gird for flooding and severe storms this winter.
We won't be able to tie every big storm, flood or dry spell that we'll see in the coming months directly to El Nino. The only thing we can expect is a wild weather ride ov er the winter.
Buckle your seat belts!
