As NOAA forecasts winter, Super El Niño brings deadly injustice

By Sophie Naimi · Reporting from Paris ·

The world is not just experiencing a natural weather cycle. We are witnessing a "Super El Niño" that has been weaponized by a century of fossil fuel emissions. While the Global North treats this as a seasonal inconvenience, the Global South is facing a massacre. The tragedy is not the warming water in the Pacific. The tragedy is a global economic system that treats the deaths of half a million people as a statistical anomaly. The North is wrong to view this as a mere forecast to prepare for. This is a crime of atmospheric theft.

The monster in the water

The physics are undeniable and terrifying. According to The Washington Post, record ocean temperatures in the key El Niño region have lasted for 150 days straight. The average water temperature there has reached 86.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Some spots have hit 88.8 degrees. This is not a gentle shift. Josh Willis, a climate scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, describes El Niño as "like a monster that stretches all the way across the ocean." He says it rises "like Godzilla" and "breathes fire" on Southeast Asia.

This monster is not acting alone. NPR reports that this pattern is occurring alongside warming temperatures caused by fossil fuel emissions. This is where the "natural" argument dies. We have loaded the dice. In early October, a Kelvin wave raised sea levels along the West Coast. Dillon Amaya of North Carolina State University notes that these waves "load the dice" for flooding. We are no longer talking about nature. We are talking about a nature we have broken. This mirrors the 2015-16 El Niño, which also saw record-breaking warming and catastrophic flooding.

A postcard from a burning future

For the wealthy, this means a "doozy" of a winter. In the U.S., NOAA predicts warmer-than-average temperatures and above-average precipitation in several regions. In Spain, Infobae reports that Sevilla could reach 30 degrees on Friday. These are headlines about "unstable weather" and "mild winters." They are the luxuries of the safe.

But for the rest of the world, this is a death sentence. Tamma Carleton of the Climate Impact Lab tells DW that this event is a "postcard from the future." She warns that land temperatures will run about 1.2 degrees C above normal. This is the warming we expect in 20 years, arriving all at once. The cost is staggering. Researchers estimate 451,000 excess deaths worldwide.

These deaths will not be evenly spread. The toll will fall on Nigeria, Sudan, Niger, Chad, India, Indonesia, and Brazil. These are lower-income countries where people have the fewest ways to adapt. The North watches the thermometer; the South counts the bodies.

The engineered famine of the South

The violence of this cycle is most visible in the stomach. In southern Africa, the forecast is grim. Daily Maverick reports that an El Niño drought, combined with shrinking aid, will worsen food insecurity. The Food and Agriculture Organization warns that conditions could be worse than the 2015-16 drought.

Now, we are repeating the nightmare. There is a greater than 50% probability of agricultural drought across Namibia, Botswana, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, and Madagascar. This follows the mechanism of the 2023-24 El Niño, where natural variability triggered food insecurity and price hikes for the most vulnerable.

The injustice is political. The US Administration's decision to abandon US Aid has reduced the budget of the World Food Programme. We are cutting the lifelines exactly when the storm hits. We are telling the farmers of the Sahel and the mothers of the South that their survival is not worth the budget line.

The luxury of preparing for rain

In the North, the conversation is about "mitigation" and "heads up." Ken Graham of NOAA says these predictions help people "assess all the risks." He claims "earlier and better decisions saves lives." This is a comforting thought for someone in California or Florida. In Guayaquil, Ecuador, the "decision" is already made by the rain. The Washington Post reports that nearly 20 inches of rain fell there in October. The average is 0.2 inches. That is 100 times the normal monthly amount.

When the North talks about "preparing," they mean buying sandbags or adjusting a heating bill. When the South prepares, they are bracing for the "mother of all modern [El Niño] events," as Abraham Levy puts it. The North's "wild winter" is the South's total collapse. We cannot pretend that a "warmer winter" in the Midwest is the same event as a famine in Zimbabwe. They are two sides of the same coin, minted in the boardrooms of oil companies.

The Super El Niño is not a weather event; it is a ledger of global debt. The North has spent a century burning the atmosphere, and the South is now paying the interest in lives. We are seeing a collision between a natural cycle and an industrial fever. The 451,000 projected deaths are not "excess mortality." They are the direct result of a world that refuses to price carbon but is happy to price the hunger of millions. If we treat this as a "natural" disaster, we are complicit in the slaughter. The only honest response is not a weather alert, but a demand for reparations and an immediate end to the fossil fuel era.

Sources

  1. NPR: Forecasters are predicting a warmer and wetter winter. Here's how El Niño will affect your region
  2. The Washington Post: This El Niño has now set records for 150 days straight
  3. DW: El Nino is a 'postcard from the future' — and could cause 451,000 excess heat deaths
  4. Infobae: La llegada de vientos húmedos dejará lluvias y chubascos a partir de este viernes: la Aemet pronostica tiempo inestable en estas zonas
  5. Daily Maverick: El Niño threatens to deepen southern Africa’s poverty crisis