A looming ‘Super El Niño’ could outpower an 1877 weather event that killed 50 million people, threatening global food supplies with record-breaking heat
A “Super El Niño” is brewing in the Pacific Ocean which experts warn could pack a bigger punch than a historic weather disaster that wiped out 50 million people. The 1877 El Niño triggered The Great Famine, which killed off roughly four per cent of the planet’s population through starvation and disease.
If a tragedy on that scale struck today, the death toll would skyrocket to a staggering 250 million. During that Victorian-era catastrophe, Pacific water temperatures spiked by 2.7°C (4.86°F), wreaking havoc on global weather.
But terrifying new forecasts suggest ocean temperatures could shoot past 3°C (5.4°F) above average later this year.
Speaking to the Washington Post, Deepti Singh, associate professor at Washington State University, issued a warning about the threat of matching the 1870s crises. She said: “Simultaneous multiyear droughts similar to those in the 1870s could happen again.
“What is different now is that our atmosphere and oceans are substantially warmer than they were in the 1870s, which means the associated extremes could be more extreme.”
The 1877–78 nightmare is widely seen by historians as one of the first truly global climate disasters. Back then, ongoing dry spells exploded into full-blown catastrophes, obliterating crops worldwide. Monsoon rains vanished in India, northern China’s harvests failed completely and Brazil’s rivers dried up to nothing. Parts of Africa, southeast Asia and Australia were also pushed to the brink by horrific droughts and raging forest fires.
As populations starved, outbreaks of malaria, plague, dysentery, smallpox and cholera tore through the weakened public. Now, a repeat performance could be on the cards. Paul Roundy, from the State University of New York at Albany, warned that this year could be “potentially the biggest El Niño event since 1877”.
Meanwhile, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe added that the weather system could have a “profound impact on human society and human wellbeing.”
The El Niño–Southern Oscillation is a natural phenomenon that flips between hot (El Niño) and cold (La Niña) phases every two to seven years. When El Niño takes over, a massive surge of warm water spreads across the Pacific, dumping heat into the atmosphere and driving up global temperatures for months.
Any time the ocean warming breaches the 2°C (3.6°F) mark, it gets slapped with the “super El Niño” tag. Right now, tropical Pacific sea temperatures are soaring faster than at any point this century.
Wilfran Moufouma Okia, Chief of Climate Prediction at the WMO, confirmed the weather models are pointing to a major event. He said: “Climate models are now strongly aligned, and there is high confidence in the onset of El Niño, followed by further intensification in the months that follow. Models indicate that this may be a strong event.”
The UK’s Met Office expects sea surface temperatures to climb 1.5°C (2.7°F) above average, predicting it could be the “strongest El Niño event so far this century”.
Over in the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) gives a one-in-four chance of a “very strong” event breaking the 2°C barrier. Europe’s forecasters at the ECMWF go even further, warning of a potential 3°C (5.4°F) surge.
Thankfully, experts say a modern-day Super El Niño shouldn’t trigger the same apocalyptic body count as the 1877 disaster, as the world is now armed with advanced tracking tech, better political systems and superior economic safety nets. However, they still warn that a climate shock of this size will likely spark chaos for global food security.
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