Why next year is a movie: Super El Niño vs. the World

2027 is the next 2020. The next bookmark year.

We aren’t all going to die, but I’m ready for things to become really different, really fast.

This write-up is adapted from a presentation I gave to Effective Altruism Purdue. It’s about El Niño, the Iran war and how they will build off of each other to make next year historic.

You can view the slide deck that includes discussion questions related to whether the lack of existential risk is a valid reason to deprioritize climate as a cause area here.

Super El Niño

El Niño is a weather pattern that heats up the atmosphere every couple of years. Normally, the wind of the Pacific Ocean blows like this:

This causes the hot water to pool on one side, leaving little surface area for that heat to transfer to our atmosphere. During an El Niño, the trade winds change due to storm patterns, making the situation look like this:

The warm water is spread out, causing more heat transfer from the sea’s surface to our atmosphere. To see what we’re in for, we can look at the average temperature of the sea’s surface to measure the El Niño’s strength. You can find the updated numbers here:

As of Sept. 16, we have crossed +3 °C above average. That is more than 4 standard deviations above how hot a typical El Niño is.

The temperature will continue to grow, with projections of the final temperature ranging between +3.6 °C and +4.2 °C.

This El Niño has already broken the modern record for sea surface heat and has three more months of growing. This isn’t just extreme; it’s the most extreme of the extremes.

The event has officially met the threshold of +2 °C above relative average to become “super.”

Godzilla El Niño is on the horizon getting ready to crush the world.

The effects

The EU was kind enough to release a map:

Some highlights:

Europe will get warmer. This region already has a heat-death problem, with more than 35,000 people killed over the summer. People were willing to jump into the filthy Seine to cool off due to European buildings lacking AC and being designed to trap heat. It will get significantly worse next year.

India, responsible for 11% of the world’s food economy and already dealing with drought, will become even hotter and drier. It is just one of the many agricultural powerhouses that will deal with a worse harvest on top of already rising prices from shortage in 2026.

In addition to agriculture, extreme weather affects power. Floods cause power grids to shut down. Droughts make it so there isn’t enough water for generation in the first place.

Here’s a zoomed-in look on the United States:

The South already has a flooding problem. Every year, flooding kills hundreds, shuts off power and stops transportation. Communities will still be rebuilding from last year’s flood season by the time next year’s hits.

Like most farming regions in the world, the Midwest’s and Northwest’s food production will be weaker.

Weaker food production at home; weaker food production abroad. Grocery prices will spike.

But Godzilla El Niño isn’t coming alone. He has a partner-in-crime, setting the scene for an all-out attack.

The Iran war

30% of the world’s fertilizer trade goes through the Strait of Hormuz. Went. 30% went through the Strait.

In addition to fertilizer, you need a lot of power for agriculture. Giant agricultural equipment guzzles oil and gas by the gallon.

25% of the world’s oil went through the Strait of Hormuz. To get around the blockade, some oil has been going through Saudi Arabia’s pipeline. Recently, Iran-backed forces bombed it so hard you could see the leakage from space.

Saudi Arabia has since canceled European oil shipments until November.

To keep voters happy, the U.S. government has been subsidizing oil using its reserves. You can see it in gas price data:

Notice how diesel has jumped more than regular gas. Without the political subsidies, prices at the pump would be much higher than they are right now.

But those subsidies won’t last long. Here is the amount of oil the U.S. has left in reserves:

The green line is if the war winds down. The yellow line is if the war continues as it does right now. Iran escalating suggests that the red line is realistic.

The limit at 250 million barrels in the reserve represents the global energy flow (GEF) minimum. Past this line, subsidies no longer work effectively. We won’t be able to take out oil fast enough from the salt caves they’re stored in due to reserves being too low.

If we continue to subsidize as we do now, we will hit the GEF minimum in late October. If Iran continues to escalate (which they seemingly intend on doing), we will hit it in early October.

Rural agricultural communities live and die on oil. It’s used for production, shipping food out and trucking in products from long distances to stock their shelves. In the U.S., they will be crushed first.

With the holiday season coming up, I would book your flights before the subsidies dry up in October and prices soar.

Costco doubled the prices of their motor oil and set limits on purchasing. The ground is shaking. The monsters are almost here.

The plot

To help you understand what is about to go down, I drew a map:

At first, the data gifted me a sense of impending doom for a generational depression. Now, I’m more focused on enjoying the current good times.

I highly suggest you read director Adam McKay’s short and entertaining write-up on the current status of climate change. These movie people have a way with words.