As we approach winter, there is good news for people who shiver at the thought of the cold and live in the northern hemisphere: temperatures are likely to be warmer. They can thank the cyclical weather pattern known as El Niño. But for other parts of the planet, the forecast is not pleasant. For some regions, it could be disastrous. Increased rainfall is likely in South America, while severe droughts are expected in Australia, Indonesia, and parts of southern Asia. Deadly floods have already occurred in Peru and India, and in Australia, where it is spring, authorities are warning of an especially dangerous fire season this summer. Recently, Hurricane Otis, after intensifying explosively, hit the Mexican Pacific coast as a Category 5 hurricane. El Niño may have played a role in that transformation in just 24 hours; the warmer sea surface temperatures associated with the weather pattern provide favorable conditions for hurricane development in the eastern Pacific.
The human cost of El Niño’s repercussions is enormous. It is also a phenomenon that is increasingly understood. As we enter another year of El Niño, one that could be “powerful at historic levels,” the challenge is for wealthy nations to coordinate and deepen their aid to developing countries before they face these predictable consequences.
El Niño’s warming adds to the already warmer average temperatures brought by climate change. This makes the side effects of El Niño—increased food prices, more infectious diseases, and even civil wars—more likely and dangerous. It also serves as a warning of what is to come as climate change worsens. Our research suggests that this year’s El Niño could lead to phenomena such as crop loss, which would leave 6.8 million children suffering from extreme hunger.
El Niño is a predictable phenomenon. In general, we know how it works and how and where it tends to affect people and livelihoods. These forecasts can be used to help prevent damage to food systems, energy supply, and, most importantly, human health. If we do not learn to use these forecasts to focus aid and prepare for predictable weather and climate events, how will we cope with the more unpredictable consequences of climate change?
El Niño occurs every few years and begins with warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that affects weather patterns across a vast swath of the planet. In general, all of these areas experience above-average temperatures, and most of them receive less rainfall, while a smaller proportion face increased rainfall.
These patterns are reversed when the cold weather pattern known as La Niña takes hold. The last three years of La Niña have caused devastating drought in the Horn of Africa, exacerbating conflict in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya. Meanwhile, the current El Niño phenomenon has brought the same type of torrential rains to Peru this year that are believed to have led to the worst known case of child sacrifice over 500 years ago, committed, according to archaeologists, to appease the gods.
In a recent study, we calculated the impact of El Niño on child nutrition in the world’s tropics and gathered data from over one million children over four decades and across all regions of developing countries, a sample representing approximately half of the over 600 million children under 5 years old worldwide. We found that El Niño’s warmer and drier conditions increase child malnutrition in most of the tropics, where the World Health Organization (WHO) already considers 20 percent of children to be underweight. This condition leaves children underweight for their height and age, and stunted for their age. That percentage increases by 2.9 percent for each degree of warming in the tropical Pacific during El Niño years, affecting millions of children.
The current El Niño phenomenon is predicted to be severe: the average forecast points to its peak occurring in late 2023, when sea surface temperatures exceed the average of a normal year by just over two degrees Celsius. Our research suggests that this could result in between 3.5 and 6.8 million children suffering from malnutrition; the much smaller number that may benefit from increased rainfall is around 850,000.
This means that the El Niño of 2023 could wipe out an entire year of progress in the United Nations’ efforts to eliminate malnutrition by 2030. And we have seen this before: in the case of the recent and historically strong El Niño of 2015, the number of children with or below the WHO threshold for severe underweight increased by almost six percent, meaning nearly six million more children were pushed into hunger, which had a lasting impact on their health even if they regained their weight. According to our study, to counteract the effects of the 2015 El Niño, it would have been necessary to provide micronutrient supplements to 134 million children or food to 72 million children experiencing food insecurity.
We should apply the lessons of the 2015 El Niño to the present. Wealthy nations and organizations like the United Nations can coordinate humanitarian aid on the ground before the crisis occurs, and they can direct this aid with increasing precision. We know six months in advance which places El Niño typically brings more rainfall and drought. Now we have to use this information to prevent millions of children from experiencing extreme hunger that will leave them with physical and cognitive consequences for the rest of their lives.
Some countries, like Brazil, Indonesia, and Australia, use El Niño forecasts to prepare for floods, wildfires, and agricultural damage. And the World Food Programme monitors El Niño conditions and has called for action in response to such forecasts.
But the fact that so many children are harmed by a predictable climate phenomenon suggests that the threats of El Niño are not being adequately addressed. This will require a major shift in the international community’s mindset about the potential havoc these weather events can wreak and how to prepare for them. More resources and better coordination between international aid organizations and governments will be needed to address not only this El Niño phenomenon and future ones but also the worsening climate crisis.
This month, as the international community gathers in Dubai to decide what to do about climate change, El Niño will serve as both a warning and an opportunity to learn to respond swiftly to extreme weather phenomena. Millions of children depend on us getting it right now; millions more depend on us learning to get it right in the future.
Amir Jina is an assistant professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Jesse Anttila-Hughes is an assistant professor at the University of San Francisco. Gordon McCord is an adjunct associate professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego.