![]() The strong El Niño events of 1997-98 and 2015-16, for example, brought flooding and mudslides to California. This is because scorched earth is able to retain less water, which can lead to dangerous runoff. That can cause mudslides in California and in other places where there have been wildfires, which can be quite devastating," says DeWitt. "Frequently what happens is that when the rain comes, it comes very fast. This would come after several years of drought following three consecutive La Niña seasons. Southern states in the US are the most likely to experience severe impacts, including heavy rainfall and potential flash flooding, DeWitt warns. But all these effects largely depend on the strength of the El Niño that is driving them. El Niño also typically reduces the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, but can lead to more hurricanes to the Pacific coast of the US. ![]() ![]() "El Niño tends to enhance the probability of above normal precipitation for the southern third of the US," says David DeWitt, director of the US NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. ![]() In North America, this typically causes Canada and the northern US to have a warmer, drier winter than normal while the southern states and Gulf coast tend to get wetter conditions, says DeWitt. This leads to more moisture-rich air above the warmer ocean that alters the circulation of air in the atmosphere around the world. While El Niño can bring intense periods of extreme weather to North America, it doesn't always do so.ĭuring El Niño, winds that usually push warmer water in the Pacific Ocean towards its west side weaken, allowing the warmer water to drift back towards the east and spread out over a larger area of the ocean. Other economic impacts in the US could include infrastructure damage from flooding, which would lead to supply chain disruption, and poor harvests caused by floods or drought, says Mankin.īut should people in the US be bracing themselves for a particularly miserable winter this year if there is an arrival of El Niño? Not necessarily. In California, for example, 98% of homeowners don't have flood insurance. "When we talk about an El Niño here in the United States, it means that the types of impacts that we'll see, floods and landslides, aren't typically insured against by most households and businesses," says Mankin. Our study shows that economic productivity in the wake of El Niño is depressed for a much longer time than simply the year after the event," says Justin Mankin, co-author of the study and assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth College. "El Niño is not simply a shock from which an economy immediately recovers. They project that global economic losses will amount to $84tn (£68tn) this century as climate change increases the frequency and strength of El Niño events. It is worth noting that coastal tropical countries such as Peru and Indonesia, however, suffered a 10% drop in GDP following the same El Niño events, the researchers say. If an event of a similar magnitude was to happen today, it could cost the US economy $699bn (£565bn), they calculated. And they say that following two previous very strong El Niño events in 1982-98, the US gross domestic product was 3% lower half a decade later than it otherwise would have been. The effects of this could also reverberate for some time to come – a recent study by researchers at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, estimates that an El Niño starting in 2023 could cost the global economy as much as $3.4tn (£2.7tn) over the following five years. Chances of at least a moderate event are about 84%," wrote Emily Becker, associate director of the Univeristy of NMiami's Coperative Institute for Marine and Atmopsheric Studies, on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) blog. "We expect El Niño to continue into the winter, and the odds of it becoming a strong event at its peak are pretty good, at 56%. But it could also bring damaging extreme weather such as heavy rainfall and flooding to communities in the US and elsewhere this winter. Scientists have already warned that with rising emissions and a strong El Niño there is a 66% chance the world will break through a key 1.5C global warming limit at least one year between now and 2027. If that turns out to be the case, then the impacts could be significant. And they are warning there is a good chance that it could be a particularly strong El Niño this year. This movement of water and heat has now triggered the start of a climate phenomenon that will bring dramatic shifts in weather patterns around the world over the coming months.Ĭlimate scientists have just announced that an El Niño weather pattern has taken hold and will strengthen through to the end of this year and the first months of 2024. A vast body of warm water has been slowly sloshing across the tropical Pacific Ocean in the direction of South America.
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