Lilou Hardonnière -
El Niño, less fun than it sounds, is a climate phenomenon of the South Pacific Ocean. During an El Niño Southern Oscillation cycle (ENSO), the Pacific jet stream (corridor of air current in the atmosphere) is push towards the south and east, lapping the Western coast of Southern America. This effect is completely natural in the ecosystem Earth (like the GHG effect) and is triggered by excessively warm sea temperatures. Hence, you can imagine that this doesn’t bode well with climate change.
The ENSO is divided into three categories: a first cold, a second warm called La Niña and a third neutral. The first and second are usually the culprits of natural disasters we are tackling. Indeed, with climate change, phases one and two have gone from happening once every 20 years to once every 10 (data since 1900’s).
Upon doing research, I found that the literature agreed there were very few studies of ENSO effects in Pacific island communities (Kelman, 2019), as opposed to their South American counterparts. However, we can still find obvious correlations between El Niño and the island’s flood, fire and drought rates. For instance, in 2022, 70% of the 35 reported natural hazards were floods, counting over 700 casualties.
Due to a complex political context, mitigating these effects is often impossible in the Pacific, to the detriment of civilians.
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