Record El Niño Triggers Crop Failures on 3 Continents as India Logs 5th-Driest June
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Aug 12
Record El Niño Triggers Crop Failures on 3 Continents as India Logs 5th-Driest June
2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Aug 12
Summary
Dry spells and crop failures are already spreading across three continents as this year’s El Niño strengthens months before its usual December peak.
Unusually warm Pacific waters have pushed the pattern into an early onset, with scientists saying the El Niño response has already kicked in and is on track to be the strongest in nearly 80 years of records.
Panama has not had a major storm since early May, Ethiopia’s highlands are enduring one of their driest summer stretches in four decades, and India posted its fifth-driest June since records began in 1901.
The event is also nudging up global temperatures, adding to El Niño’s typical role in scrambling weather patterns every two to seven years.
Scientists are still debating how much human-caused climate change is increasing the odds of stronger, more frequent El Niño events, given the system’s complexity.