Blaming El Niño for the increasing intensity of extreme weather events worldwide is only telling part of the story, according to leading climate scientists and policy experts, who spoke at a briefing organised by 350.org.
The climate campaign group’s Fuel on Fire: Reporting El Niño and the True Costs of Climate Change briefing brought together experts in climate attribution, meteorology and policy to discuss the impact of the developing El Niño weather phenomenon over the remainder of the year.
Climate change factor
As the experts noted, while El Niño is set to amplify global temperatures – by up to 0.25°C – human-induced climate change is the core factor behind the longer-term increase in extreme weather.
“The question for attribution science is no longer whether weather extreme events are enhanced or intensified by climate change, but how much,” commented Davide Faranda, research director at CNRS and coordinator of the ClimaMeter attribution initiative.
Faranda pointed to ClimaMeter research showing that a recent June heatwave in Western Europe was up to 2.5°C hotter because of climate change.
Elsewhere, Shel Winkley, chief meteorologist at Climate Central, said that “climate change is the cake and El Niño is essentially the frosting on top,” noting that warmer sea surface temperatures in parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean are now up to 500 times more likely because of climate change.
Amira Odeh Quiñones, from 350.org’s Caribbean team, reported on the impact of extreme weather in the region, noting that more than four fifths (82%) of Puerto Rico is currently experiencing drought, while temperatures have exceeded 38°C across parts of the Greater Antilles.
“While we have experienced El Niño many times before in the Caribbean, it is very visible in the most recent years how the climate crisis is making this phenomenon feel more intense in the region,” she said. “We are feeling extreme heat and drought and we are paying the consequences with threats to our health and effects on the household income of many struggling families.”
Economic impact
Elsewhere, Gareth Redmond-King, head of international programme at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), sought to set out the economic scale of the climate crisis, noting that current trends could cut global GDP in half later this century, as well as increasing food prices for households.
“Climate change is absolutely at the heart of the cost-of-living crisis – climate disasters kill people, destroy crops, and damage infrastructure in the short term,” he said. “In the medium term, they’re building bigger risks into our global food system.” Read more here.
