El Nino May Bring Civil Unrest This Winter

OCT 22, 2015 09:50 AM ET // BY EMILY SOHN

When an unusually powerful El Niño struck in 1997, civil conflicts erupted across the tropics, from Sudan to Peru -- as floods, droughts and fires devastated crops, fisheries and livelihoods.

It wasn’t an isolated case, suggests growing evidence that links El Niño’s extreme weather with a spike in violent conflicts in tropical regions. As one of the strongest El Niño events in recorded history gains steam this fall, some experts are warning of the potential for more unrest to come – and the urgent need to take preventive action.

“Half the world’s population is exposed to a higher risk of violence this year,” says Solomon Hsiang, professor of public policy at Berkeley. “Now that we know what to expect, we shouldn’t necessarily sit back and watch sparks fly. There are a lot of things we can do.”

Civilizations That Withered in Drought

Collapses of entire civilizations have been linked to climate shifts, with examples that go back centuries. The Little Ice Age in the mid-1600s, for example, has been blamed for widespread wars and political crises that occurred around much of the world at the time.

More recently, scientists have focused on the devastating potential of El Niño, a phenomenon that happens every few years, when surface waters in the Pacific become warmer than normal. That extra heat rises, altering atmospheric circulation patterns and affecting weather conditions around the world.

El Niño events play out in various ways from region to region, often but not always bringing rain to the American West and mild conditions to the upper Midwest. But El Niño hits hardest and most predictably in the tropics, with rising temperatures and rainfall extremes that go both ways.

Already, this year’s El Niño has sparked forest fires in Indonesia, drought in Ethiopia and a wimpy monsoon season in India, says Marc Cane, a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York, who created the first predictive model for El Niño.

Flooding is expected in Uruguay, southern Brazil and northern Argentina, while parched conditions are likely in most of Southeast Asia, Africa, the South Pacific and much of South and Central America.

Those weather extremes can be economically disastrous in the tropical world, where crops often fail when it’s too hot, dry or wet. Farmers struggle to make a living. Food prices go up. And people who already spend a large portion of their income on food end up facing financial stress. Conflict, according to accumulating evidence, often follows.


Sohn, Emily. "El Nino May Bring Civil Unrest This Winter."
Discovery News. N.p., 22 Oct. 2015. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.

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This article discusses the lack of rain that is expected for this year.  This article says that the lack of rain can lead to political unrest, and conflict. This author does not seem to have a big bias if any.  There is no side to take for the subject of this article. This concept of no rain bringing unrest makes sense. If there is no rain, crops can die, people can starve, and products can be limited. This things put a strain on the government and economy. When the government is strained the people react in negative ways, causing conflict and unrest. If there is expected to be low rainfall this year that will mean a lot of countries that will struggle and we should be praying for that.