Record El Niño projected to kill 450,000 by February, mostly in tropics
Climate scientists warn the strongest El Niño on record will cause 240,000 additional heat deaths by February, with Africa and south Asia hardest hit.
Part of a larger narrative
The Supercharged El Niño
- Newsom declares statewide emergency ahead of record-strength El Niño
- Record El Niño projected to kill 450,000 by February, mostly in tropicsyou are here
- Asia braces for 'supersized' El Niño as governments launch emergency preparations
What to know
- The Climate Impact Lab projects 450,000 El Niño-related deaths by February 2027, with 240,000 additional deaths expected in the next six months.
- Nigeria, Indonesia, India, and Brazil face the heaviest toll; Africa overall will be hit hardest, with the southern hemisphere especially vulnerable during its spring and summer.
- Preventive measures—cooling centers, health worker deployment, heat forecasts, outdoor worker protections—could save many lives if implemented now.
- Researchers frame the current El Niño as a preview of 2045-level heat, arguing the world must invest in permanent climate adaptation tools rather than perpetual emergency response.
“I do find these results plausible. El Niño will bring very high temperatures to much of the world, and the relationship between heat and mortality is consistent and reliable across the world.”
Christopher Callahan, Indiana University Bloomington climate scientist · New Scientist ↗
Emily Grover-Kopec Rhodium Group researcherProf Michael Greenstone Co-founder, Climate Impact LabDr Tamma Carleton Climate Impact Lab researcher, UC BerkeleyChristopher Callahan Indiana University Bloomington climate scientist
How it unfolded 0 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump
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Researchers outline preventive measures and call for long-term planning — The Climate Impact Lab researchers note that actionable steps could prevent many deaths, including assigning health workers to vulnerable populations, ensuring water access, and providing cooling centers and air conditioning. Dr. Tamma Carleton emphasizes that current extreme temperatures foreshadow conditions expected in 20 years from climate change, calling for development of lifesaving tools now rather than relying on emergency response indefinitely.
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Study identifies Nigeria, Indonesia, India as most vulnerable nations — The report breaks down the projected deaths by region, with Africa hit hardest: Nigeria alone faces over 30,000 excess heat deaths in the next six months. Indonesia is projected to see 19,000 deaths, India 16,000, and Brazil 13,000. The US ranks in the top 20 affected nations with 3,500 projected deaths. Elderly people and infants are identified as the most vulnerable age groups.
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Climate Impact Lab projects 450,000 El Niño-related deaths by February — Researchers at the University of Chicago's Climate Impact Lab released peer-reviewed estimates showing that record-breaking El Niño conditions will cause approximately 450,000 excess deaths globally by February 2027. The total includes 210,000 deaths already attributed since the El Niño began in June, plus 240,000 projected deaths over the next six months. The estimate derives from analyzing temperature-mortality relationships across 24,378 global regions and combining them with European weather forecasts.
What people are saying 24 voices from 3 sites · best of 37 · verbatim
- Yesterday
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Large countries existing and having larger shares doesn't stop climate friendly policies causing benefit. What even is this thinking? Also I just want to point out a weird thinking trap I see here all the time. Imagine there are 100 people in a room with limited food. 90 are on one side and 10 are on the other. Each side votes on how much food to…
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With 100,000 estimated equatorial heat deaths thus far in hot weather # ClimateChange tragedies this year thus far, with the incoming "Godzilla" weather cycle heating up rapidly and expected to take up to 500,000 lives across the planet within next six months. The US is expected to have 3,500 # ElNiino related deaths, while some countries fair far…
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Super El Niño Heat Could Kill Nearly Half a Million People in 6 Months, Report Warns https:// gizmodo.com/super-el-nino-extr eme-heat-deaths-2000816058?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub Posted into Earther @ earther-Gizmodo
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Fuck "Huge # ElNiño projected to cause 450,000 deaths by February" https://www. theguardian.com/environment/20 26/sep/23/el-nino-450000-extra-deaths-six-months # climatechange # climatecrisis
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I love how they now accept it's real but because it's "not man made" that means for some reason we shouldn't even attempt to fix it, we should just roll over and die I guess
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Don't worry, in 50 years when a natural disaster like this happens once a week, we'll have so much displacement and climate migration that the places that are still habitable will be a hellish nightmare for anyone to survive in... But, we might have two or three trillionaires on the world. That fixes everything, right?
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Ugh, you just reminded of the covid times and these people who wanted to argue about what actually counts as a "covid death". If you get a pneumonia because you got covid and the pneumonia kills you then covid killed you. The transitive property of killing.
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Huge # ElNiño projected to cause 450,000 deaths in next six months More than 450,000 people are projected to die from heat brought by super El Niño in next 6mo, according to estimates by # climate scientists. The toll is on top of the early deaths resulting from temps already driven up by # climatecrisis . It will strike across the globe, from…
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God I hate this argument so much because FUCKING…. Yes! The climate always 🌈 CHANGES 🌈 but that does NOT override the glaring data and statistics we’ve measured over the last 200 years specifically pertaining to the massive effects of industrialization impacts on greenhouse gases and the planet as a whole! Yes. We have been coMinG out of an IcE…
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Chalking it up as “it is just how it goes” is not an argument. Humans can study the effect of our habits, we can adapt and grow our own food. Out of the great apes we are also the only one eating a substantial amount of meat. We kill 90 billion land animals, 1-2 trillion fish and estimated 20 trillion other marina life every year for food…
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Nigeria doesn’t even keep these numbers. I am not skeptical of climate change but over the past five years I am skeptical of the Guardian. Doesn’t matter. We’re all gonna die.
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you're missing the part where there are a lot of us and we have eaten species into extinction before. If you have a bunch of starving people, no one is thinking about ethics.
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100kWh a day?? Can you tell us what's the heated area? m2 or squrefeet, and what do you use to heat up? For example, I heat up 170m2 (1800sq ft) to 24 °C (75.2 °F), outside is -5-10 °C, daily consumption around 25-30kwh. We cook on induction too.
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Huge #ElNiño projected to cause 450,000 deaths in next six months https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/23/el-nino-450000-extra-deaths-six-months New report predicts a heavy toll from Nigeria to the US – and comes on top of existing impacts of the #ClimateCrisis
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In Trump's appallingly funny speech to the UN yesterday, he claimed during an aside that no one had died from climate change. He's wrong, of course. Many thousands have died as a result of climate change, and hundreds of thousands will do so. Climate change is not causing El Niño, but it is exacerbating its effects. "Huge El Niño projected to…
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Check out this Climate Dashboard and El Niño forecast built by # ZekeHausfather https:// dashboard.theclimatebrink.com/ #global Background article: "The worst El Niño in recorded history is brewing — here’s how governments must prepare" in eke HNature, 2026 https://www. nature.com/articles/d41586-026 -02939-x # climate # science # elnino # scicomm
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Brace yourself. "A postcard from the future" is a terrifying but true analogy. Huge El Niño projected to cause 450,000 deaths in next six months | El Niño southern oscillation | The Guardian https://www. theguardian.com/environment/20 26/sep/23/el-nino-450000-extra-deaths-six-months # elnino # elnino2026 # climate # ClimateChange
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This is what we could be finding solutions to if we weren’t having to re-litigate the absolute basics of representative democracy and international cooperation. https://www. theguardian.com/environment/20 26/sep/23/el-nino-450000-extra-deaths-six-months
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V guardian Huge El Niño projected to cause 450,000 deaths in next six months https://www. theguardian.com/environment/20 26/sep/23/el-nino-450000-extra-deaths-six-months?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
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Never-before-experienced heat extremes "More than 450,000 people are projected to die from the additional heat brought by the super El Niño in the next six months, according to estimates by climate scientists." “So, in many places around the world we will see never-before-experienced heat extremes, with all their consequences on health, food…
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Nach Schätzungen von Klimaforschern werden in den nächsten 6 Monaten voraussichtlich mehr als 450.000 Menschen an der zusätzlichen # Hitze sterben,die der Super-El Niño verursacht. Das kommt zu den Todesfällen hinzu, die durch die bereits durch die Klimakrise getriebenen Temperaturen verursacht wurden. Es werden viele weitere Todesfälle durch die…
- Sep 22
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I have a new piece out in Nature today on the record-breaking 2026/2027 El Niño, what impacts we should expect, and how governments can prepare. The Niño3.4 region is currently running more than 1C hotter than any prior event on record, and we remain months away from the peak https://www. nature.com/articles/d41586-026 -02939-x
- Sep 21
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El Niño is breaking every existing record already, and it's got weeks to go before it's likely to hit a peak. We're going to see a warmer world than any humans before us this year billmckibben.
- Sep 17
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a historic El Nino is looking likely for this fall.. but we should be real about it - it is already 'historic' this chart shows the anomaly over the past few months, which is already unprecedented. and it may get worse the current temperature of the El Nino region has not yet reached the record of 2015, but it seems like it may https://…