Damage from El Niño-related extreme weather, in crop losses, flooding, wildfires and civil unrest, can cost tens of billions of dollars in direct impacts over a period of months or a year. New research suggests that the real cost is much higher — in the trillions — because conventional accounting fails to recognize “persistent” shortfalls in gross domestic product that unspool over several years and are harder to identify.
The paper, by Dartmouth Earth system scientists Christopher Callahan and Justin Mankin and published today in the journal Science, comes at an auspicious time. The US Climate Prediction Center earlier this month raised odds beyond 90% that an El Niño weather pattern will form later this year. These episodes, which occur every several years, can bring everything from hot and dry weather to Australia, wildfires to Indonesia, rain to parched East Africa, a lighter Atlantic hurricane season, winter blizzards in the US Northeast and mortal heat to coral reefs.
