Today I learned – something I had not heard about the forces setting this current massive El Niño cycle in motion – two mirror-image cyclones on either side of the equator, spinning in tandem in such as way as to amplify the winds that bring warm Pacific surface water to the Western Pacific off Peru…
That El Niño event, now emerging, might be more powerful than the largest on record, in 1877, which lead to droughts, heat, crop failures and famine that caused the deaths of 50 million people, 3 percent of the then-population of planet earth.
The parallels to today are sobering, with current geopolitical realities, such as the constraints on fertilizer production brought about by the Republican War for Oil.
The coupling of geo-political stresses with extreme weather events could lead to unprecedented global strains in the near future.