A fossil-fuel-driven climate crisis is intensifying El Niño, threatening to unleash harsher droughts, floods and heatwaves. With India already grappling with rainfall deficits and drought-hit regions, the warning is clear: climate adaptation must begin on farms and in reservoirs, even as the world accelerates its transition to clean energy
El Niño occurs naturally every two to seven years, as the waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean warm, affecting weather patterns around the world. Among the strong El Niño patterns observed over the past few decades, the current one, informally known as ‘Godzilla’, is brewing and threatening to supercharge weather patterns around the world. A new study published in Science has found that the burning of fossil fuels has been contributing to the strongest El Niño events in living memory.
Julia Cole, a climate researcher at the University of Michigan who led the study, says, “Our findings suggest El Niño can supercharge global warming and also global warming can supercharge El Niño — that is what we are seeing.” The climate phenomenon, which brings a rise in global temperatures, further amplifies the worsening climate crisis. The years 2026 and even 2027 are projected to be the hottest on record. The research has concluded that human-caused global heating is making El Niño more intense. In the future, whenever El Niño is predicted, we must be prepared for the possibility of severe conditions, with its intensity potentially influenced by the burning of fossil fuels.
The lead author, Cole, added, “We are seeing a trend of stronger El Niños and the one we have now is consistent with that trend — it is not a fluke. We are seeing a shift where El Niño does not look like what it did prior to Industrial times. That is bad news for climate hazards and for people, particularly those who are badly impacted and yet have done little to cause climate change.”
In a warming world, past El Niño events over the last three decades have provided additional acceleration to the rise in global temperatures. During the study, scientists analysed the composition of large, boulder-like deposits of coral fossils found in the Galápagos Islands. These islands are situated off the coast of mainland Ecuador, a country that has faced severe El Niño conditions, causing the surrounding waters to warm. The corals died about a thousand years ago, and their chemical compositions indicate the range of sea surface temperatures when they were alive. The study found that El Niño remained stable until industrialisation began about 150 years ago. The data from the study conclude that El Niño variability is 37 per cent higher than it was in the pre-industrial era, indicating that the phenomenon has become more intense over the last 40 years.
“After El Niño in 1982, we started seeing much more variability; it is a lot more extreme and looks like nothing in the previous thousand years,” said Cole. The other members of the study ruled out random or naturally occurring causes for the acceleration. The findings have addressed a key question in climate science: whether global warming caused by fossil fuel burning is altering the strength of El Niño events. Another co-author of the study, Samantha Stevenson-Karl, a scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said, “It is a strong indication that climate change may already be amplifying El Niño events……If that’s true then really the large events like the one that seems to be brewing in the tropical Pacific right now might become more common in the future.”
In such a scenario, different regions of the world are being considerably affected by heatwaves, wildfires and floods. As El Niño becomes more intense, partly due to changes in the trade winds, surface temperatures in the western Pacific rise, bringing heavier rainfall and floods to the southern USA and South America. Countries such as Indonesia, Australia and India face drier conditions, significantly affecting food production and pushing 50 million people worldwide into hunger. Countries must take steps to adapt to these events by stockpiling food. Wildfires in Indonesia this year have brought haze and smoke into the lower atmosphere of neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, posing severe health hazards. However, the real solution is to transition away from burning fossil fuels.
The south-west monsoon in India is already showing signs of suppression, with rainfall deficits in peninsular India and some regions of central India. Recent rains in northern India, across the Gangetic Plain, have eliminated the deficit but caused severe flooding in the region. This is a double whammy: the delayed monsoon in northern India has reduced agricultural sowing and planting areas, affecting food production, while also causing considerable hardship as some regions have remained under floodwater for over two weeks, damaging standing crops.
Nearly 40 per cent of the country has experienced rainfall deficits, particularly in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and sizeable parts of Rajasthan. Karnataka has declared 177 of its 240 taluks drought-affected. More taluks are also likely to be added to the list. The state has taken precautions to maintain sufficient water in its reservoirs for drinking purposes until June 2027. While complying with the tribunal’s directive, water from the Cauvery reservoirs has been released to Tamil Nadu. The state has also released water from reservoirs in the Krishna basin to Telangana. The water situation in Karnataka is quite stressful.
The Maharashtra Government has imposed a 10 per cent water cut in all urban and rural local bodies from 16 October amid a deficient monsoon. They have also been asked to ensure that treated wastewater is used for gardening, construction and washing instead of fresh water. Industries have been directed to reuse or recycle at least 30 per cent of the water they consume. Earlier, on 26 September, the state government declared drought in 265 of 358 taluks across 32 districts, accounting for 74 per cent of the state’s area. The state has also decided to maintain a buffer stock of 10 per cent in each dam, in addition to the water required for drinking purposes until August 2027. Evaporation, silt and unauthorised extraction of water have also been considered in the calculations.
Across the country, groundwater has been pumped out to supplement the water required for paddy cultivation. In such circumstances, underground aquifers are not recharged at the same pace, resulting in many borewells drying up. The Union Agriculture Ministry and state governments have been running awareness campaigns encouraging people to grow dry crops such as maize and other millets, but these efforts have not been successful on the ground. People must realise that the Government cannot make up for rainfall deficits, and cloud seeding is not a viable option. Stubble burning in paddy fields in Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, where crops are now ready for harvest, could pose severe environmental and health hazards.
People must adapt to the circumstances and opt for millets instead of paddy. As El Niño conditions are likely to persist into the first half of 2027, farmers must also adopt soil and moisture conservation measures on their farmland.
Farm ponds must be rejuvenated to help conserve water. The inlet drains leading to water bodies and agricultural land must be cleared, and vegetation in catchment areas must be preserved. More trees should be planted in degraded catchment areas, as this helps reduce monsoon run-off during rainfall and conserve soil moisture.
As El Niño is found to be intensified by fossil fuel burning, the only long-term solution is to transition towards renewable and cleaner energy.
Nearly 40 per cent of the country has experienced rainfall deficits, particularly in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and sizeable parts of Rajasthan. Karnataka has declared 177 of its 240 taluks drought-affected. More taluks are also likely to be added to the list. The state has taken precautions to maintain sufficient water in its reservoirs for drinking purposes until June 2027. While complying with the tribunal’s directive, water from the Cauvery reservoirs has been released to Tamil Nadu
The writer is a former Head of Forest Force, Karnataka; Views presented are personal.