This winter, dwellers in the northern hemisphere should expect a lengthy visit from ENSO - the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. ENSO brings extreme weather that can cause myriad social and economic impacts, and there is 80% chance of it continuing in the Northern hemisphere during March-May 2024.
Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), expect a "strong" El Niño, with a 75-85% chance of temperatures reaching or exceeding 1.5°C above November-January seasonal averages.
To learn more about the NOAA’s diagnostic discussion of ENSO, visit: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml
Climate change plus El Niño = worse
We know that global warming is intensifying the effects of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), but how does this affect the global economy?
A recent paper finds that “El Niño persistently reduces country-level economic growth; we attribute $4.1 trillion and $5.7 trillion in global income losses to the 1982–83 and 1997–98 El Niño events, respectively.”
The authors estimate that more powerful ENSO effects due to global warming could cause $84 trillion of economic value to be lost during the 21st-century.
They conclude: “Our results highlight the sensitivity of the economy to climate variability independent of warming and the potential for future losses due to anthropogenic intensification of such variability.”
If you would like to read more, the full paper Persistent effect of El Niño on global economic growth by Christopher W. Callahan and Justin S. Mankin is available here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf2983
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