Drought, Deadly Heat and Climate Crisis: El Niño Has Ended But Impacts Still Felt

The El Niño weather event, which began in June 2022, has finally ended after causing widespread damage across the globe, according to Australia's weather bureau. The climate phenomenon, combined with human-induced climate change, has led to record temperatures, droughts, wildfires, deadly heatwaves, and crop failures in various regions around the world.

In South America, El Niño-linked droughts have forced Ecuador to ration electricity and Colombia to ration water, while also intensifying devastating wildfires. West Africa and the Sahel experienced a deadly heatwave, with temperatures up to 1.5°C warmer due to climate change. Southern Africa faced low rainfall, resulting in crop failure, water shortages, and cholera outbreaks. Southeast Asia also suffered from searing heat, with Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand all recording record-breaking temperatures.

Why this matters: The severe consequences of the El Niño event, exacerbated by human-induced climate change, emphasize the pressing need for global action to reduce the effects of extreme weather events. As these phenomena become more frequent and intense, they pose a growing threat to human lives, food security, and the environment.

Meteorologists attribute the unusually long dry spells and heat to El Niño, but emphasize that the warming world is playing a significant role. Studies have shown that many of these extreme weather events were driven by a mix of both factors. For example, the exceptional Amazon rainforest drought last year was primarily due to climate change, but El Niño also contributed by suppressing rainfall.

The lingering effects of the climate phenomenon are expected to continue into 2024. The World Meteorological Organization warns that 2024 is highly likely to set new heat records, as the year after an El Niño event tends to be warmer. Experts stress that without rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, these extreme weather events will become much more common and dangerous in the future.

Southern Africa, in particular, has been hit hard by the El Niño-fueled drought. Parts of the region received half or less of their typical rainfall during the growing season, with February 2024 being the driest February in the 40-year data record for an area spanning much of Zambia, Zimbabwe, southeastern Angola, and northern Botswana. The arid conditions resulted in crop failure, with maize crops withering and dying on 1 million hectares in central and southern Zambia, almost half of the country's maize-growing area.

The drought has affected critical crops and livestock, exacerbating already high food prices and leading to crisis levels of acute hunger and water shortages for an estimated 20 million people. A study found that the severe drought was twice as likely to occur in El Niño years, making El Niño a key driver of the 2024 event. While climate change did not emerge as a significant driver of the drought, increasing global temperatures are expected to make droughts of this severity more frequent, occurring at least twice per decade in the current climate.

Looking ahead, a new statistical analysis by climate scientists at the University of California Berkeley predicts that the upcoming summer in the tropics has nearly a 70% chance of breaking <a href="

Key Takeaways

• El Niño event ended in 2022 after causing widespread damage globally.
• Climate change exacerbated El Niño's impacts, leading to extreme weather events.
• Southern Africa faced severe drought, crop failure, and food insecurity.
• 2024 likely to set new heat records due to lingering El Niño effects.
• Severe droughts expected to become more frequent without emissions cuts.