The year 1877 was a brutal one. In India and northern China, a drought that had begun the previous year escalated into a great famine, while a severe drought also swept across Brazil in South America. The worst weather anomalies and famine, which continued into the following year, claimed the lives of more than 50 million people — over 3% of the world's population at the time. In the United States, abnormally warm winter weather led 1987-1988 to be called the "year without winter." The fact that the great famines and abnormal weather that threatened humanity were caused by the most powerful El Niño in history was revealed only 140 years later by researchers at Columbia University in the United States.
The El Niño phenomenon, in which rising sea-surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific near the equator trigger extreme weather events, was first observed and recorded in 1578 by Spanish explorers who visited Peru. Afterward, Peruvian fishermen called this phenomenon, which appears around Christmas, El Niño — Spanish for "the baby Jesus." Unlike a normal El Niño, in which sea-surface temperatures rise by 0.5 degrees or more, a very strong El Niño in which they soar by 3 degrees or more is called a "super El Niño." During 1982-1983, 1997-1998, and 2015-2016 — counted as the three great super El Niños since the start of modern weather observation — the Earth suffered from severe floods, droughts, crop failures, famine, and wildfires. In particular, when ultra-powerful El Niños sent sea-surface temperatures soaring by more than 4 degrees in 2015, following 1997, meteorologists nicknamed it "Godzilla El Niño."
On the 11th of this month, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officially declared the onset of El Niño this year and warned of the possibility of the most powerful super El Niño to appear since 1950. With a Godzilla-class El Niño set to intensify from this fall, there are also forecasts that next year will be the hottest year in history. Of course, thanks to advanced forecasting technology, there will be no defenseless catastrophe as in 1877. Moreover, Korea lies geographically outside the direct sphere of influence, so there will likely be little damage. But if a Godzilla El Niño strikes amid supply chains already broken by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, it could cause serious disruptions to global food supply and demand, water management, and energy demand. This is not something to be watched as if it were a fire across the river.
