'Super' El Niño is coming. What should you expect?
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What makes this El Niño a “Super” or “Godzilla” event?
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By now you've probably heard or seen the headlines.
Buckle up, there is some extreme weather coming our way global.
Because we're in the midst of not just any old El Nino.
The World Meteorological Organization says that it's quote literally off the charts.
Some scientists have nicknamed this a super or even Godzilla event.
This year we're really seeing an El Nino for the record books.
Look, as a Godzilla stand, I love any reference to the King of the Monsters, but even I'm like, what does that actually mean? That's the question we put to Julia Cole, the last person you just heard. She's a climate scientist and chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan.
This El Nino is stronger at this point in time than any other El Nino that we have good data for.
And she says it's still strengthening.
Normally El Nino's reach their strongest point.
How strong is the current El Niño compared to historic records?
Around November, December, January.
So yeah. In Julia's opinion,
we're virtually guaranteed to get a record breaking El Nino in the coming year.
Now you might hear that and think, so what? El Nino happens every two to seven years. It's just weather, right? But this weather really packs a punch.
Stronger El Niños lead to stronger impact, so we can expect more intense floods, droughts, temperature changes. We also are already seeing tropical storms coming in, striking Hawaii, drought in Indonesia, which is really extreme and leading to wildfires and terrible air quality across that region. Something like a quarter million acres or more have burned as a consequence of the drought in Indonesia.
So whether you live in the US or abroad, there's a good chance you're going to feel this El Nino. You might already be, which is why we at Shortwave want to spend some time talking through the science of this natural climate phenomena, starting with a big question that scientists have had about El Nino for a long time. Are we humans making it worse?
It's been very hard to determine the human fingerprint on El Nino and La Niña because there's a lot of what we call internal variability in them.
Only now Julia thinks she's found an answer, buried in coral. So today on the show, how climate change is impacting El Nino and what that means for all of us living on land. I'm Nate Rott, and you're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
This week on the NPR Politics Podcast, Republicans are on their heels and about to spend a lot of money on ads.
Some of these uh ads are gonna be ugly and it's gonna be a pretty negative campaign. That's the nature of a midterm when you got a an environment like the one that the Republicans are facing.
We look at the Republican money machine with less than 40 days until the midterms this week on the NPR politics podcast.
Austin Tice is an American journalist who disappeared over a decade ago while reporting in Syria.
Are humans amplifying El Niño intensity and how do we know?
And for years, we've been searching for him.
This looks like a secret passage. I'm just
pushing a door so you can get in. Listen to Where is Austin Tice from NPR's Embedded and BBC Radio 4 on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Okay, so before the break, I said something that I think needs a little more explanation, which is that El Niño, La Niña, this cycle, is a natural phenomenon, where in El Nino, the Pacific Ocean along the equator warms. That warmer water warms the atmosphere above it. Imagine holding your hand above a hot bath, right? Warm air rises.
And at the same time, that rising air is a disturbance in the upper atmosphere that rearranges how the atmosphere circulates over the Pacific and outside the Pacific. So that's how anomalies or climate extremes get exported from the tropical Pacific into North America, South America, and even further beyond.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What makes this El Niño a “Super” or “Godzilla” event?
0:00–1:19
2
How strong is the current El Niño compared to historic records?
1:19–3:27
3
Are humans amplifying El Niño intensity and how do we know?
3:27–5:26
4
What can coral records from the Galápagos tell us about past El Niño trends?
5:26–7:09
5
What did the new coral‑based study reveal about recent El Niño variability?
7:09–9:07
6
How will a stronger El Niño affect global weather and extreme events?
9:07–10:23
7
What are the practical steps communities can take to prepare for this El Niño?
10:23–12:25
8
What does this research mean for future climate risk and adaptation?
12:25–14:42
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from Short Wave
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