{"id":96827,"date":"2026-11-06T07:32:36","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T07:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=96827"},"modified":"2026-11-06T07:32:36","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T07:32:36","slug":"were-having-a-super-sized-el-nino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/11\/06\/were-having-a-super-sized-el-nino\/","title":{"rendered":"We&#8217;re having a \u201cSuper-sized\u201d El Ni\u00f1o"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Royal Meteorological Society has produced a media briefing about the rapidly strengthening and record-breaking \u201csuper\u201d El Ni\u00f1o that is now underway. Tbney sent me a briefing on this yesterday.\u00a0 Their full document <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rmets.org\/sites\/default\/files\/RMetS-El-Nino-Briefing-Note-Nov-2026.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">is available here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As they put it in the email to me:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It is essential that messaging around El Ni\u00f1o includes the context of fossil fuel-driven climate heating.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The key points in their report, which I am not seeing reported elsewhere, are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A powerful El Ni\u00f1o on a hotter planet means greater risks. The current El Ni\u00f1o is the strongest in the modern observational record. It will influence weather around the world, but its impacts are unfolding against a background of unprecedented human-induced warming, meaning extreme weather can now have more damaging consequences.<\/li>\n<li>El Ni\u00f1o may push global temperatures towards new records, but fossil fuels are driving the long-term warming. The impact of climate change on global temperatures is more than ten times the short-term boost associated with a typical El Ni\u00f1o event. Climate change is already affecting extreme weather risk, the cost of living, and food systems and supply chains in the UK. This year\u2019s El Ni\u00f1o could temporarily push temperatures to 1.6 -1.8\u00b0C, a long-term level of heating we will reach within 10-15 years at current emission rates.<\/li>\n<li>A warmer world can amplify El Ni\u00f1o's disruption. El Ni\u00f1o shifts rainfall and atmospheric circulation, increasing heatwaves and droughts in some regions, and extreme rainfall and floods in others. The warmer atmosphere from climate change intensifies heat and rainfall extremes, worsening the consequences for people, agriculture, water supplies, and infrastructure. However, impacts vary considerably between regions and individual events.<\/li>\n<li>The UK is not insulated from the consequences. El Ni\u00f1o can influence North Atlantic weather patterns, potentially affecting winter storms and rainfall, although its effects on UK weather are less predictable than in the tropics. <strong>The UK is also exposed through global food production, commodity prices, supply chains and economic disruption.<\/strong> Climate change is already increasing the UK's exposure to extreme heat and intense rainfall.<\/li>\n<li>We cannot stop El Ni\u00f1o, but we can limit the warming that makes its impacts more dangerous. There is growing evidence that climate change increases the severity of El Ni\u00f1o events and amplifies its impacts, and there is high confidence that continued warming will intensify extreme heat and rainfall. Rapidly cutting fossil fuel emissions and investing in climate resilience are essential to limiting future risks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I added the emphasis in the fourth of those paragraphs.<\/p>\n<p>I know people think my outlook is gloomy right now.<\/p>\n<p>I think that is justified. What I want us to do is manage the risks, and my concern is that we are not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Royal Meteorological Society has produced a media briefing about the rapidly strengthening and record-breaking \u201csuper\u201d El Ni\u00f1o that is now underway. Tbney sent me<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/11\/06\/were-having-a-super-sized-el-nino\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,35,108,74,147,118,224,106,223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-environment","category-green-new-deal","category-inequality","category-labour","category-neoliberalism","category-politics","category-politics-of-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96828,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96827\/revisions\/96828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}