El Niño has been strengthening for several months now and is already having a significant impact on global weather patterns. Countries including Indonesia, India and the United States have been experiencing droughts, floods and heatwaves in line with projections about how extreme weather events will be supercharged by the phenomenon. The World Meteorological Agency says the record-breaking El Niño will strengthen further and persist until at least 2027.
Here are five ways its impact is already being felt around the world. Indonesia, which typically trends drier and hotter in El Niño years, is battling its worst wildfire season since 2015. This year, since January, at least 895,657 hectares of land – nearly six times the size of Greater London – have been burned.
This is more than twice the area burned last year without the influence of El Niño. The wildfires have led to school closures and an increase in hospital admissions across Indonesia. Millions of people in Sumatra and Kalimantan have been exposed to toxic haze from the fires and around 175,000 people have suffered from respiratory illness.
More than 40,000 cases – which range from coughs to bronchitis and more serious conditions like pneumonia – involve toddlers. In the eastern Pacific, where El Niño tends to strengthen hurricane activity, it has been a very active season so far. There have been 22 named storms and 12 hurricanes, including 10 major hurricanes.
This is already above the number that would typically develop in the whole of an average season, with two months left to go until its end. Here, El Niño provides the ingredients of higher ocean temperatures and weaker winds high in the atmosphere, making it easier for storms to gain strength. Hurricane Polo is one such example of this.
The hurricane experienced rapid intensification, producing wind gusts of 180 mph (285 kmh), fueled by the very warm waters produced by El Niño. Polo was also one of three hurricanes churning away in the same basin at the same time, along with Odalys and Nolo. Moreover, it has happened twice now in the space of a month.
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