The belt of warm ocean water known as El Niño, which stretches from South America to Asia, causes widespread climate changes during the years in which it occurs, contributing to devastating floods, crop-destroying droughts, collapses in fish stocks, and increases in fish stocks tropical diseases. With El Niño expected to return this year, Dartmouth researchers report in the journal Science that the financial damage from the recurring climate pattern can continue for several years after the event itself, causing trillions of dollars in lost income worldwide. The study is one of the first to assess the long-term costs of El Niño, projecting losses far in excess of previous research estimates.
El Niño is the warm phase of the South El Niño Oscillation, the natural cycle of warm and cold temperatures in the tropical Pacific, which includes its cooler counterpart La Niña. El Niño events change weather patterns around the world, typically leading to wetter and warmer winters on the West Coast and a milder hurricane season on the Atlantic Coast in the United States. The researchers examined global economic activity over two years in the decades following the 1982-83 and 1997-98 El Niño events and also found a “persistent sign” of a slowdown in economic growth more than five years later. The global economy lost $4.1 trillion and $5.7 trillion, respectively, in the half decade following each of these events, with most of this borne by the world’s poorest tropical countries. Researchers estimate that global economic losses will total $84 trillion in the 21st century as climate change potentially amplifies the frequency and intensity of El Niños, even if current pledges by world leaders to reduce CO2 -Emissions are complied with. The study authors estimate that the 2023 El Niño forecast alone could cost the global economy more than $3 trillion by 2029.
The latest climate models assume that there will be a “very high probability” of El Niño this year, particularly between May and July 2023, with the effects lasting until Christmas. Italy and other countries are already trembling from the damage caused by the heat wave.