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https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/08/el-nino-effects/688429/?gift=43H6YzEv1tnFbOn4MRsWYhe5nEFgk7C87XxiXaHSqXw&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

This El Niño Will Be Unlike Any in the Past Eight Decades

Die-offs and floods have started already, a prelude to supercharged storms and droughts.  

By Joshua Partlow

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, along the equator, scientists have drawn a box. It’s a big box, two-thirds the size of China, yet hardly anyone lives inside it. This rectangular swath of open ocean is monitored by satellites and a network of moored buoys that measure minute changes in the temperature of the water, with an eye toward anomalies. Every few years or so, driven by changing winds and currents, the water temperature in this part of the ocean starts to rise; even a half degree Celsius above normal over months warrants a designation that an El Niño phase has begun. That’s enough warming to unleash floods and fires, drought and famine, around the world. The box is called Niño 3.4. Right now, it’s hot in the box.(...)

...Most of the world experiences El Niño’s ripple effects as the heat building up in the equatorial Pacific radiates into the atmosphere and around the globe. This means great gouts of rain in supercharged storms in some places; in other areas, crop-killing dry spells that can extend for months. Along the Pacific Coast of South America, torrential rains and landslides have forced the temporary closure of a main route to Machu Picchu, in Peru; deadly floods have swept through arid regions of northern Chile. Countries such as India and Ethiopia are enduring some of their driest summers on record. El Niños tend to mean more rainfall across the southern United States and drier stretches across a band in the North. Strong El Niños can mean record-breaking heat, and this one is shaping up to be unlike any catalogued in the past eight decades. A 2-degree-Celsius increase in the Niño 3.4 box typically earns the title of “Super El Niño”; we’re already past that threshold, and experts project that the warming could peak at roughly twice as high.

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

The box is called Niño 3.4. Right now, it’s hot in the box.

That's bad for ducks, right? 🤔

This is as today :

Trouble if the area east of Japan moves east, and the Galapagos goes west.