A report published Wednesday by researchers at the University of Chicago’s Climate Impact Lab estimates that extreme heat fueled by this year’s “Super El Niño” event could kill more than 450,000 people in the coming months, in addition to deaths from drought, wildfires, and other extreme weather.
The report notes that “anomalously warm conditions” caused by the record-shattering El Niño—which refers to the warming of ocean-surface temperatures in the Pacific—“will resemble the higher temperatures that climate change is projected to deliver 20 years in the future… and will lead to 44% more extremely hot days than we would expect in a normal year.”
Climate Impact Lab researchers projected that the extreme heat will result in 451,000 more lives lost through February 2027, compared to a typical year.
“This is about 65 times larger than the 6,800 people believed to be dead or missing from the recent Nepal flash flood,” the new report observes. “With current forecasts suggesting El Niño will remain in place through spring 2027, we expect all of these numbers to grow even higher, particularly as impacts such as higher-than-average temperatures and heat-related deaths will linger into June and July.”
Nigeria is expected to see the largest number of El Niño-related deaths over roughly the next five months, at 31,400. Indonesia, Sudan, India, and Brazil will see more than 10,000 deaths each through February, according to the Climate Impact Lab.
"This is such a large number that it can be numbing, but it is made up of parents and children, grandparents and neighbors, people going to work, caring for families, and living their lives,” Michael Greenstone, a co-founder of the Climate Impact Lab, said in a statement. “This report allows decisionmakers to see exactly where emergency actions can be taken now to save tens of thousands of lives in the coming months.”
The impact lab’s report describes this year’s El Niño as a “postcard from our future,” noting that “it is bringing temperatures climate change is projected to deliver 20 years in the future.”
“Twenty years from now, once today’s extreme temperatures become the new normal,” said Tamma Carleton, faculty head of research for the Climate Impact Lab and co-author of the new report. “We don’t want to be in a constant state of emergency.”
The report was released shortly after United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned in his final address to the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday that “a supersized El Niño” is “speeding straight for humanity.”
“As tragic events have shown, impacts are arriving sooner, hitting harder, and spreading further than many anticipated,” said Guterres. “Now we face a near-certain breach of the 1.5°C limit.”
On Saturday, The Washington Post observed, the average ocean-surface temperature in a portion of the central equatorial Pacific Ocean reached 3.05°C, “the highest peak sea surface temperature anomaly on record.”
“The record anomalous reading occurred two months earlier in the year than the previous peak in November 2015 and an El Niño in 1877 that contributed to a famine that wiped out 3 to 4% of the global population,” the Post added.
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