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Baby Amazon river dolphin in the zoo in Duisburg (symbolic image).
© Michael Gottschalk/Imago
El Niño is causing chaos and devastation in several South American countries - in very different ways.
BOGOTÁ, Colombia - An El Niño weather system predicted to be one of the strongest in recent history has contributed to a range of disasters around the world, from fires to floods.
The disruptive weather pattern, which occurs over many months every few years, brings unusual warming of water in the Pacific Ocean, often causing a whiplash of moisture in normally dry areas and drought in moist, temperate areas.
Experts say climate change has made these extremes even worse.
“We’ve made it worse with climate change,” says Mark Cane, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University.
South America has been hit particularly hard by what Crane calls the “double whammy of El Niño and global warming.”
Here are five examples of El Niño's impact on the continent.
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Impact of El Niño: Fires in Colombia threaten unique plant
A plant called Frailejón grows high in the Colombian Andes.
It grows to about the size of an adult human and is known for its crown of fuzzy leaves that draw moisture from the fog.
The plant turns the haze into water, which replenishes local watersheds.
But the Frailejónes are in danger due to an unprecedented fire season in parts of the Colombian Andes that are normally temperate, cool and wet.
The plants only grow at certain altitudes and take decades to mature, raising fears that the wildfires could decimate the species that has withstood years of other unrest in the country.
Frailejónes landscape in Colombia.
© Pond5 Images/Imago
The Frailejónes are so popular in Colombia that they appear in a well-known children's song.
An Instagram account with more than 100,000 followers is dedicated to the plant;
a recent post showed a distressed cartoon Frailejón surrounded by fire, with the caption: “Forest fires are no joke.
The lives of many plants, animals and frailejónes are in danger.”
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El Niño in Peru: Dengue fever rages during heat waves
El Niño got its name in Peru, where, it is said, fishermen noticed the weather pattern around Christmas time.
They called the phenomenon “el niño de la navidad” (“the Christmas child”).
The current El Niño is being blamed for a massive increase in dengue cases in Peru.
Heavy rains tied to this weather pattern were a boon to the country's mosquito population last year and led to Peru's largest dengue outbreak on record.
More than 270,000 cases have been reported, overwhelming hospitals in some regions.
There have been at least 381 dengue-related deaths.
“And now, above-average temperatures are once again creating a favorable environment for the transmission of dengue fever,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a regional update on Friday.
The number of dengue cases in Peru increased by more than 53 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year, OCHA said, citing figures from the Peruvian Ministry of Health.
The increase, the agency said, “coincides with ongoing El Niño-related heat waves.”
Amazon river dolphins are dying en masse due to El Niño
The bodies of more than 150 pink river dolphins were found in unusually warm water in Lake Tefé in the Amazon this fall, when some of El Niño's more noticeable effects occurred.
Scientists said the cause was not immediately clear but that extreme heat and drought caused by El Niño and climate change were likely responsible.
The water level had dropped significantly and the lake's temperature had reached 102 degrees Fahrenheit (about 39 °C).
The warm water drives the dolphins away, Claudia Sacramento, director of environmental emergencies at the state-run Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, told The
Washington Post
at the time .
And then they suffocate because of the lack of oxygen, according to Sacramento.
A study by the World Weather Attribution Initiative concluded that climate change is largely to blame for the “exceptional drought” in the Amazon basin.
The study, released last month, found that El Niño and climate change are equally responsible for the decline in precipitation, but that a "strong drying trend is due almost entirely to increased global temperatures."
El Niño in Chile: Fires devastate communities
At least 131 people have died in a series of forest fires this month, according to Chilean authorities.
President Gabriel Boric declared a state of emergency and the country entered a period of mourning.
Authorities are investigating the suspicion that at least some of the fires were started intentionally.
However, experts believe that the warm and dry weather caused by El Niño and climate change created the conditions for the fires to spread so easily.
“This was believed to be the deadliest forest fire in Chile on record,” the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction said, and the death toll is expected to rise.
Hundreds of people are still missing.
First drought, then floods in Bolivia
Bolivia is in severe crisis due to a combination of intense winter heat fueled by the climate crisis and El Niño,” OCHA said in an October statement.
The drought and excessive heat forced authorities to issue heat warnings and call for water conservation.
Then came the rainy season.
But last month's welcome moisture hit parched land less able to absorb rain, causing floods that killed at least two people and displaced hundreds more, OCHA said.
The World Food Program found that certain population groups in Bolivia, such as the indigenous population and women in rural areas, are particularly vulnerable to shocks caused by climate change.
Amir Jina, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago who studies the socioeconomic impacts of environmental change, said climate change is pushing the boundaries of El Niño beyond thresholds that negatively impact "social impacts" such as agriculture and food security.
“The more we move this average up, the more we will see things like El Niño have a much larger negative impact on society,” he said.
To the author
Bryan Pietsch is a foreign reporter in the International Department based in Washington DC. He previously worked in Seoul, where he was the first reporter in the Post's news center there.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 19, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.