Meteorologists predict the weather phenomenon El Niño for this year. US researchers show that the effects go far beyond extreme weather events. The consequences stretch over years and increase inequalities.
The economic costs of the El Niño weather phenomenon amount to several trillions of euros. This emerges from a study by US scientists, the results of which were published in the journal “Science”. Not only the direct losses caused by the weather extremes associated with El Niño, such as floods and droughts, were taken into account. In addition, the researchers calculated the impact of El Niño on global economic growth and the income of those affected.
The Christ child of the climate
“El Niño”, the Christ Child: That’s what Peruvian fishermen called a climate phenomenon that occurs at irregular intervals every few years in the Pacific and whose effects were often noticed there during the Christmas season. At the same time, weather conditions are shifting worldwide due to changes in air and sea currents.
More flooding is expected in parts of Africa and South America, and more drought and wildfires in Southeast Asia and eastern Australia. For the late summer of 2023, the World Weather Organization (WMO) recently predicted an occurrence of El Niño with a probability of 80 percent.
“El Niño amplifies inequalities”
“The total cost of such events has never been fully quantified,” co-author Christopher Callahan is quoted as saying in a Dartmouth statement. “You have to add up the entire reduced growth in the aftermath as well – not just when the event takes place.” He and Justin Mankin from Dartmouth College in Hanover (US state New Hampshire) analyzed the development of gross domestic product per capita for numerous countries in the years 1960 to 2019 and compared this with the occurrence of El Niño in the years 1982/1983 and 1997/ 1998
Since the slump in economic development also affects the years that follow, the scientists calculated the economic loss for the five years following El Niño. For the event 1982/1983 it amounted to 4.1 trillion dollars (3.76 trillion euros), for 1997/1998 it was 5.7 trillion dollars (5.23 trillion euros), each in relation to a time without El Niño .
Countries in the tropics, which are already among the lower-income countries, are particularly affected. “El Niño amplifies the broader inequalities associated with climate change, disproportionately affecting those of us who are least resilient and least prepared,” stresses co-author Mankin.
2020 to 2099: $84 trillion loss
In a second step, the researchers linked their results with climate models that predict climate change by the end of the century. For the period from 2020 to 2099, they calculated a global economic loss of 84 trillion dollars (77.1 trillion euros).
“We show here that climate variability like that associated with El Niño is incredibly costly and stalls growth for years, leading us to estimate costs that are orders of magnitude larger than previous ones,” Mankin says.
The authors of the study advocate not only reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. “We need to both mitigate climate change and invest more in predicting and adapting to El Niño, as these events will only increase the future cost of global warming,” Mankin said.
El Niño benefits for some countries, as well as benefits from La Niña – the opposite phenomenon to El Niño – were factored into Mankin and Callahan’s calculations.