Climate Change Is Making El Niños More Intense, Study Finds

Close

Search Search

E360 Digest

October 23, 2019

Climate Change is Making El Niños More Intense, Study Finds

Climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme El Niño events, leading to intensifying droughts, worsening floods, and shifting hurricane patterns, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study, led by scientists in China and the United States, examined data from 33 El Niños dating back to 1901. It found that since the 1970s, El Niños — a natural periodic warming in the Pacific Ocean that can change weather patterns globally — have been forming farther to the west in the Pacific Ocean, where temperatures are warmer. Strong El Niños can cause severe drought in dry climates such as Australia and India, intense flooding in wetter climates such as the Pacific Northwest and Peru, and causes more hurricanes to form in the Pacific and fewer in the Atlantic.

Before 1978, 12 of 14 El Niños formed east of the International Dateline, the study found. Since 1978, all 11 have formed in the central or western Pacific Ocean, a shift of hundreds of miles, the Associated Press reported. There have been three “super” El Niños since the shift — in 1982, 1997, and 2015 — that broke new average temperature records and triggered catastrophic natural disasters. The 1997-1998 El Niño, for example, caused thousands of deaths from severe heat, flooding, drought, and coastal storms, and generated as much as $96 billion in damage, according to the United Nations.

If global temperatures keep rising, El Niños could continue to intensify, with major impacts on societies around the world. “If the observed background changes continue under future anthropogenic forcing [human-induced global warming], more frequent extreme El Niño events will induce profound socioeconomic consequences,” the scientists wrote.

Related Articles

• 

  OPINION

  Beyond ‘Endangerment’: Finding a Way Forward for U.S. on Climate

  By Jody Freeman

• 

  U.S. Push for Greenland’s Minerals Faces Harsh Arctic Realities

  By Ed Struzik

• 

  ANALYSIS

  Overshoot: The World Is Hitting Point of No Return on Climate

  By Fred Pearce

More From E360

• OPINION

  Beyond ‘Endangerment’: Finding a Way Forward for U.S. on Climate

• Solutions

  The E.U.’s Burgeoning Repair Movement Is Set to Get a Boost

• Biodiversity

  Baboon Raiders: In Cape Town, Can Big Primates and People Coexist?

• Energy

  How Ukraine Is Turning to Renewables to Keep Heat and Lights On

• Policy

  U.S. Push for Greenland’s Minerals Faces Harsh Arctic Realities

• ANALYSIS

  Overshoot: The World Is Hitting Point of No Return on Climate

• Solutions

  In Hunt for Rare Earths, Companies Are Scouring Mining Waste

• Oceans

  Sea Star Murder Mystery: What’s Killing a Key Ocean Species?

• Solutions

  Plagued by Flooding, an African City Reengineers Its Wetlands

• Climate

  After Ruining a Treasured Water Resource, Iran Is Drying Up

• FILM

  At a Marine Field Station, Rising Seas Force an Inevitable Retreat

• Energy

  To Feed Data Centers, Pennsylvania Faces a New Fracking Surge