El Nino has started. Preparations must too
storm Hilary slammed into it from the south. Unprecedented amounts of rain pelted downtown Los Angeles and flooded the state’s arid valleys. Without missing a beat, forecasts then shifted from drenching to baking, as a heat dome fastened itself over much of the southern United States all the way up to the Great Lakes.
Barely a day has gone by this summer without news of some extreme weather somewhere in the world. Although weather is always breaking records, that raises fears of what it will be like when the climate warms further. To add to the alarm, America’s National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration announced the arrival of El Niño, a climate pattern that shows up every two to seven years and raises global temperatures.
As a consequence, there is a good chance that this will be the hottest year on record; and that 2024 will be hotter still, with temperatures approaching 1.4°C above pre-industrial levels. Some tropical regions will suffer damaging floods, and others will suffer droughts, with worrying consequences for food supplies and the spread of disease. As with climate change itself, the time to prepare for the coming upheaval of El Niño is now.
On current forecasts, this El Niño is likely to be a strong one. The last such cycle was in 2014-16, and was ruinous in the countries it hit hardest. Droughts led South African food production to fall to a 20-year low and ignited one of Indonesia’s worst-ever spates of wildfires.
At the same time warmer and wetter weather fuelled disease across South America, including the worst outbreak of infections from the Zika virus in 65 years. One reason the effects of this El Niño are likely to be severe is that they will be felt on top of more global warming. Although
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