Researchers have warned all summer that this year’s El Niño could be record-breaking and fuel extreme weather across the globe. Earlier this month, the U.K. Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs urged people in Britain to stock up on food, bottled water and other basic supplies to prepare for potential severe storms this winter.
“We’re about to experience probably the largest El Niño that has ever been seen,” Dame Angela Eagle told The Guardian on Sept. 3. “If you’ve got a store of a bit of food that can keep you going for a while before the emergency services can get to you, you’re going to be a lot better off than if you haven’t.”
But could extreme weather really limit access to food in the U.K., and should people in the U.S. heed the same advice?
In the U.K., El Niño typically brings wetter-than-average conditions in the fall and early, cold winters. The latest forecasts suggest the U.K. will be stormy from November to January, and parts of the U.S. could also see heavy rainfall throughout winter, so it may be sensible to store enough food to last a few days at home in case of flooding or power outages, experts told Live Science. But that effort to stock up could be complicated by another problem: El Niño could cause a surge in food prices, experts added.
“El Niño events are typically associated with food price inflation in the historical record,” Michael Hinge, a senior economist at the nonprofit organization Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED), told Live Science in an email. “Keeping reasonable household stocks is one sensible step to offset short-term disruption, but becomes more difficult if food becomes less affordable.”
Unprecedented conditions
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this year’s El Niño has reached “super” status. As of Sept. 27, sea surface temperatures in a region of the Pacific Ocean known as Niño 3.4 have risen 5.7 degrees Fahrenheit (3.15 degrees Celsius) above average. A typical El Niño increases temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region by 2.8 to 3.6 F (1 to 2 C) above average, tops.
El Niño is the warm phase of a multiyear natural climate pattern. It occurs when warm water in the western tropical Pacific Ocean migrates eastward along the equator toward the coast of South America. This boosts global temperatures, triggering deluges of rainfall and floods in regions like southwestern Europe, the southern U.S. and East Africa, while places such as northern South America, southern Africa and Indonesia are more likely to experience drought.
El Niño typically brings wetter-than-normal conditions to the southern U.S. during winter.
(Image credit: NOAA/Climate Prediction Center)
This year’s El Niño will be the strongest that’s ever been recorded, because it is piling extra heat onto unparalleled levels of human-driven global warming. Estimates show that sea surface temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region, located in the central equatorial Pacific Ocean, could reach 7.2 F (4 C) above average by November.
El Niño is expected to peak by early 2027 and persist until at least March. As a result, unusually stormy conditions seem likely in the U.K. and the southern U.S., so the suggestion to stock up on essentials is likely good advice for Americans, Hinge said.
Hinge said it is common advice to stock 1 gallon (4 liters) of water per person per day, ideally for a week. For food, it’s good to collect a few cans per person of beans, fish, vegetables and fruit, as well as pasta, rice, oats, peanut butter and preserved milk. Additionally, people should have on hand a manual can opener and a camping stove with fuel, he said.
“All of the above will depend upon dietary needs, local prices and consumer preferences,” Hinge added. “These can be consumed if not needed towards the end of their shelf life, and then restocked, to minimize the cost and waste.”
Impact on food prices
The main El Niño-related threat to food access in high-income countries like the U.K. and the U.S. is not extreme weather happening locally. Rather, people in these countries may be limited in what they can afford due to El Niño’s impacts on agriculture in other regions, Hinge said.
El Niño can benefit crops in some areas, such as the southern U.S. and Peru, but it has a devastating influence on yields in many other places, including the Indian subcontinent and West Africa, where the weather pattern affects the monsoon. The impact is already visible in India, which is now on course for its weakest monsoon in two decades and about 15% less rain than average.
Given that this year’s El Niño is unprecedented there is a high risk of serious large regional shocks which could seriously impact food access
Michael Hinge, senior economist at ALLFED
Lower crop yields in countries like India raise food prices around the world. For example, dry conditions in India triggered by the 2023 El Niño prompted a temporary restriction on exports of rice, which boosted the cost of this staple food globally. And food prices will jump again this year, adding to the increases caused by the Russia-Ukraine and Iran wars, Hinge said.
Many of the outcomes of this year’s El Niño won’t be felt until after it has peaked, so the effect on food prices could be drawn out. “Given that this year’s El Niño is unprecedented there is a high risk of serious large regional shocks which could seriously impact food access” for months or even years to come, Hinge said.
The U.S. is less vulnerable to surging food prices than the U.K., because the U.S. is the biggest exporter of food globally. Overall, unless a serious catastrophe occurs, food imports won’t fall in high-income countries, but hunger and poverty will likely rise worldwide, Hinge said.
El Niño’s impact on the U.K. and other similar countries will be mostly economic, said Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading in the U.K. However, the humanitarian consequences in more vulnerable regions should remind us that climate change is making the world less safe for everyone, he said.
“It is only possible to prepare and adapt to a certain degree to mounting damage from weather extremes, melting ice and sea level rise in a warming world, that heighten during El Niño,” Allan said. The sure-fire way to mitigate these effects is to ramp up collective efforts to transition away from greenhouse gas emissions, he said.
Help us improve Live Science Pro: We’re always trying to make our content better. Leave us feedback about Pro here.
