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Just now, off the coast of the Pacific Ocean, an incredibly huge area of abnormally warm water has formed. And, just so you understand, by abnormally warm, I don't mean, "Hey, jump in the water, bro, it's just awesome here." No, I'm talking about the fact that a huge chunk of the largest ocean on Earth, stretching for thousands of kilometers, is currently doing something very strange. Warm water, which usually accumulates closer to Asia, began to move back towards America, carrying with it an incredible amount of accumulated heat. And this despite the fact that the oceans are already warmer than normal. Well, the situation is so-so, because such a mass of excess heat can start to spoil the
weather thousands of kilometers around. California is flooded with rain, Australia is drying up. Oh, wait, is n't Australia dry anyway? Well, you know, this is a complete desert in a crazy maxi, but well, it's probably getting even drier. Fish are disappearing off the coast of Peru. Crops are failing, prices for some products are soaring, and some are depreciating. All this happens just because some anomalous spot of heated water has shifted slightly from its usual place. Well, apparently it's a little more complicated than it seems. So, it's El Niño.
I'm sure you've heard of him before. And according to the predictions that lie before us, this 2026 El Niño is not something that could happen there someday. It has already begun. The main question now is how strong will he become and what will happen next? Because one economic model estimates the long-term global losses from an average El Nino at around 3.5 trillion dollars. Not billions, trillions with a T. And this particular case is developing against the backdrop of an ocean that is already overheated. So, it probably wouldn't hurt to figure out what's going on here. Normally, the tropical ocean is slightly tilted. Along the equator, powerful trade winds blow from east to west, constantly strong and stable winds that
cover the entire planet. They were also called trade winds because people used them to sail the oceans and trade. They serve as something like real ocean highways for sailing ships. The mainsail, probably. Rather, because they blow constantly, they push this warm surface water away from South America and push it closer to Indonesia and the Western Pacific. Imagine someone standing in a pool and constantly pushing warm water to the other end. If you do this long enough, there will be much more warm water on one side of the pool than on the other. At the same time, a truly positive process is unfolding off the coast of South America. As warm water recedes, cold water rises from the depths of the ocean to take its place. This
deep water carries nutrients, which is really cool if you're a fish. Then you become fat. It's also pretty cool if your entire economy is based on catching this fish. But every few years the system fails. The trade winds weaken, and sometimes even change their direction. Now imagine that pool again. Well, you kept driving the water to the other end, and then you stopped. What will happen? She splashes back. This, in fact, is the beginning of the deer season. This huge mass of warm Pacific water is starting to move east again, towards South America.
I don't mean some giant tsunami rushing through the ocean, sweeping away Los Angeles, like in the cool Hollywood movie "Disaster"? Although that would be epic. Less with that. Much of this heat actually travels below the surface in broad waves. But the main result: the eastern and central Pacific Ocean is becoming much warmer than usual. And as soon as it happens. It begins to affect the air, because warm ocean water doesn't just lie there and warm up, but it evaporates, and therefore saturates the air above it with heat and moisture. So the places where moist air rises, where it rains, and also where dry air sinks back down change. Typically, most of the Pacific's powerful tropical storms are
concentrated further west somewhere in the area of Indonesia and its surroundings. Warm water rises, moist air rises, clouds form, and rain falls. This is the standard scenario for all these tropical things. But during El Niño, the warmest water shifts eastward, followed by a large area of rising air and precipitation. Okay. Now this whole atmospheric circulation over the Pacific Ocean is starting to rearrange. And this is important, because the whole atmosphere is obviously interconnected. If you move this giant source of tropical heat a few thousand kilometers, you don't just change the weather right above it. There are such things as jet streams. Jet streams are narrow bands of endless high-speed, high-altitude winds that curve
our entire earth from east to west. Something like air highways. Airplanes use them to fly faster. So what happens is that you can also move these jet streams and pressure zones. And this can send storms to completely different corners of the planet. If you think about it, that's kind of wild. You have some unusual warm water appearing off the coast of South America, but a few months later someone in another country is wondering why this rain doesn't stop or why it doesn't stop at all . People on the coast of South America noticed at least some of this a century ago, when fishermen sometimes saw their normally cold, fish-rich coastal waters suddenly warming. Then the rise of those nutrients became very weak, and fish became much
harder to find and catch. And since this most often happened around Christmas, they called this phenomenon El Niño, meaning boy, referring to the Christ child. At the time, of course, no one knew that they were seeing only one part of a gigantic climate system that stretched across the entire Pacific Ocean. Today we can observe the development of El Niño. In real time, scientists are monitoring a section of the Pacific Ocean called Niño 34. And this year, by the end of July, it was already about 2° warmer than normal. I know it sounds like nonsense, but obviously for a huge piece of ocean, that's a lot, a lot. And right now, it gives as much as 81% that this phenomenon will gain maximum strength from October to December, and
the probability that El Niño will last until the spring of 2027 is 97%. You probably see the term Super El Niño a lot online these days. It sounds like this El Nino should wear a superhero cape. But no, Superlniño is not actually an official Noah category. It's just slang that people use for an exceptionally strong phenomenon. And of course, it's a bit of hype in the media and panic-mongering among views, clicks, and likes. And, by the way, surface temperature is not everything. There is a huge amount of heat moving eastward beneath the surface. So the ocean and the atmosphere are now starting to feed each other. Weaker winds push more warm water eastward.
Warm water changes the atmosphere, and this can further weaken the usual winds. And so back and forth in a circle in this big, big tank. That's why, when a strong line really gains momentum, it starts to accelerate itself. The main unknown right now is not whether this phenomenon exists, it does, but how strong it will become by winter. And the consequences also come at different times. Ocean temperatures may peak first. Then there will be weather anomalies, then crops may suffer, and the consequences for food prices will come even later. So even when the Pacific Ocean starts to cool again, these effects will reverberate in the
global economy for a long time to come. There is another reason why people are following this alniño so closely. The ocean was unusually warm even before it began. According to this forecast, July 2026 was the warmest July in the entire history of observations of the surface temperature of the world's oceans. So now we add El Niño on top of that. And that's important because El Niño itself moves this huge amount of heat across the tropical Pacific Ocean and can transfer even more of that heat into the atmosphere. How much this will change things right now, we don't know for sure yet, but starting with an already warmed ocean probably gives this system a lot more fuel to work with. Warmer air is also able to
hold more moisture, about 7% for every additional degree. So if El Nio, for example, pushes a region into heavy rain, much more precipitation could pour from the sky. On the other hand, if the region is heading towards drought, well, then things could get really bad for completely different reasons. And this is where predicting El Niño becomes very, very difficult. El Niño doesn't mean California will flood on December 12th and Australia will burn in January. It doesn't work that way, but it changes the probability. Think about it this way. It pushes our climate system into other patterns that are unusual for us. But real weather also depends on what's happening in the Atlantic, Indian oceans, and
the atmosphere at any given moment. So we can say that the dice are loaded, but we don't know what numbers they will roll. Take, for example, North America. You might hear about a very warm ocean and immediately think, "Oh, great, there's going to be more hurricanes." But, surprisingly, El Niño can actually suppress hurricanes. And remember, most Atlantic hurricanes start as small eddies off the coast of Africa, and then they kind of drunkenly push westward. Not all, but most. Then Yakelninio influences hurricanes with the help of what is called a tailwind. Roughly speaking, it's when the wind at the top of a storm moves differently than at the bottom. And this can tear the storm to pieces before it can even
form normally. El Niño usually intensifies such a surge over part of the Atlantic. So the current forecast gives a 75% chance of a weaker-than-normal Atlantic hurricane season. Sounds like good news, right? But the thing is, you don't need 15 hurricanes to cause trouble. All it takes is one giant one that strikes in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Hurricane Andrew proved this very clearly in. And there is another problem. At the same time, temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea are already soaring. Therefore, as soon as this breeze weakens, at least for a while,
any bad weather will quickly gain threatening strength. This is one of the strangest things in this whole story. El Niño may reduce the total number of Atlantic storms, but the background ocean heat potentially makes those that survive as dangerous as possible. And further west, the jet stream may shift south at times, sending more Pacific storms across the southern United States. California is the place everyone is watching because that's where everything can start. And also because it is a kind of modern Babylon. And it's as if we're subconsciously waiting for something bad to happen there.
More storms could mean much- needed water. And that's cool. California desperately needs water, but preferably not all at once, otherwise flash floods will begin, drying up the soil and washing away the roads. The real wrath of God or surprises from Mother Nature. Call it whatever you want here. In some areas of the Gulf Coast and Florida, the altered trajectory of winter storms could also increase the risk of tornadoes. Meanwhile, tornado activity in the south-central United States may actually decrease. Again, the same El Niño. Different consequences depending on where you live. If we cross the Pacific Ocean, everything turns upside down. As tropical showers shift east, dry air descends over Australia more frequently. And this
means less rain in these areas and an increased risk of forest fires. Okay, we drove to India. In India, everyone watches the monsoon. And a monsoon, by the way, is not just one big storm. This is a seasonal change in winds that brings India the majority of its annual rainfall. The latest forecast says India will receive about 90% of its normal monsoon rains. And I'm like, "Well, 10% less than average." It does n't sound so bad, but then you remember how much agriculture and all the people involved depend on this rain coming at roughly the same time and in the same amount every year. Not enough and the harvest suffers. Too much also affects the harvest.
Agriculture and more trouble. And there is also Amazon. Parts of the rainforest there have already been significantly degraded due to logging and previous droughts. El Nino increases the risk of another dry spell. This does not mean that Amazon will suddenly suffer a complete collapse. But there is nothing good in this. For example, the cane makes trees more vulnerable, increasing the risk of fires. And here's what people often don't take into account. El Niño doesn't end when the strange weather stops. Weather ruins things, and ruined things cost money. Researchers at Dartmouth have estimated that years after an average El Niño can leave the global economy about $3.4 trillion poorer than
it would have been without it. But this is just one model and it is a very rough estimate. Other economists consider it overstated, and older estimates were much lower. So treat this with skepticism. This is an inaccurate repair check from God. But the basic idea here is not some super-mystical one. Imagine the situation. The farmer is left without a crop due to the flood. It would seem that only one season was lost, but the consequences are much deeper. He will lack funds for next year's sowing. In addition, the water could damage equipment and wash away roads. Meanwhile, the state is forced to spend billions on
repairing bridges and dams, which is forcing other important infrastructure projects to be postponed. Logistics are disrupted, insurance companies' losses are increasing, and rates are rising. Food prices are rising, investments are falling. One disaster creates a new expense, which creates a new delay, which entails something else, and so on. Therefore, when scientists talk about trillions and the consequences of a chain reaction in losses, this does not mean that the morning after El Niño someone will be given a check for 3.5 trillion dollars. It's about all these small changes that accumulate over time. Maybe they're not wrong overall, I don't know.
Less with that. Oddly enough, this takes us back to the same fishermen who gave the name to the lake. When warm water at the surface blocks the normal rise of deep water near the plume, fewer nutrients reach the mountain, less food for plankton, less plankton for fish. Anchovies are migrating or becoming fewer. Anyway, Peru catches fewer anchovies, which is important. After all, Peru is the main producer of fishmeal, so it is becoming more expensive. Fish farms pay more for feed. Well, then some fish meat producers are also forced to pay more and blah. Eventually, this crazy chain, which starts in the warm waters off South America, shows up in your local supermarket. So can we do something about it? The funny thing about
Zelninio is that people have been dealing with it for thousands of years. The phenomenon itself is not new. What is new is that we now see it coming. A few hundred years ago, fishermen from Parun knew that El Niño had arrived because the fish would simply disappear. Today we have satellites, ocean battles, atmospheric measurements, computer models, and months of warning, which is a huge advantage. If you understand that there will be heavy rains, reservoir operators can clear the space in advance. Farmers can change their planting schedules. Countries can move food supplies closer to vulnerable areas and people.
Firefighting aircraft can be deployed before fires even start. Governments can buy grain before everyone else suddenly rushes to buy the same grain at the same time. So there's a lot we can do. What's most infuriating is that all of these actions require money even before you're 100% sure that a disaster will happen. Imagine, the forecast for the reservoir says there could be heavy rains from El Nino. Okay, you dump a bunch of water to make room, and then the storm's trajectory changes. It is not raining. Congratulations.
Now you don't have flooding, but you also have less water. The same with early grain procurement. If everything goes well with the harvest, they ask: "Why did you throw millions of dollars away if you don't buy and the harvest dies?" Everyone is asking, "Why didn't you prepare better? It sucks, because there's no winning here. And that's where we are with this El Niño in 2026. It's not the end of the world. El Niños have happened before, and they will happen again, but this time it's forming in an unusually warm ocean and we're watching it grow and strengthen in real time. Now we know where the biggest risks lie. Not perfect, but better than in the past. However, even though we've learned to predict disasters with
high accuracy, preventive action is still our weak point.
