An El Niño could also pose a threat to food security amid a number of other global crises— including price spikes for fuel and fertilizer due to the Iran war.
“We’ve become a lot better at producing food in less ideal situations, and we’re better at transporting food around, but there is risk of crop failures in some parts of the world in response to redistribution of rainfall, because the El Niño tends to result in it raining less in places that are normally wet,’ says Roundy.
When was the last super El Niño? And how is climate change impacting El Niños?
Scientists are still trying to understand the link between El Niño events and climate change. Some research seems to show that the burning of fossil fuels, and the resulting warmer atmosphere and oceans, could be making El Niños stronger, but not all climate scientists agree.
“There are signs that it seems like the El Niños of our future are going to be different because of the warming climate,” says Ian Faloona, micrometeorologist in the Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources at the University of California, Davis. “It’s hard to forecast even now in the current climate, and then forecasting it in a warmer climate is even more tricky.”
