El Niños ; Past and Future Events
El Niños are not a new phenomenon. Paleoclimatic research indicates their occurrence at least as early as 6000 years ago but likely even earlier (Anderson et al 2013). However, with climate change impacting water temperatures around the world, they only seem to be getting worse and impacting every region of the world and not limited to the Pacific Ocean and the continents in it (Anderson et al 2013)
The most intense El Niño of the 20th century happened from 1982 to 1983 and its effects were felt throughout the globe (Caviedes 1984). The west coast of the United States was hit with severe flooding and places like Australia and Africa had severe droughts and dust storms. When the next El Niño hit in 1997-1998, the term started to become more widely used and recognized around the world, specifically in American and global pop culture.
Historic records and first hand accounts from the 20th century major El Niños demonstrate the potential devastating power and effects of these climatic events. Specifically for the coast of South America, catastrophic flooding, altering of marine species occurrence and destruction of infrastructure occurred with warming sea temperatures and torrential rains often continuing non-stop for up to a full year. Effects from major El Ninos of the 1980s and 1990s were shown to have been exacerbated by coastal deforestation, altering of natural water flows and courses and heavy coastal urbanization on land prone to flooding or land which would provide outlets for natural water flows (Caviedes 1984). Layers of flood deposits in archaeological sites provide evidence of similar destructive powers in the past (cf. Nesbitt 2016). A valuable question is how and if ancient coastal societies adapted or developed more resilient strategies for surviving El Niño events and if contemporary societies have or will as well.
Like many other historic storm events - such as Hurricane Sandy - the effects often relate to cultural memory or lack of societal memory. As years pass without a major storm communities return to high risk areas such as immediate coastal plains, building in areas blocking natural water flow. This may have been the case for the Moche in the past - did they expand without resiliency? Why do they seem to have survived and even expanded after El Niño events early in their history but suffered societal downturn and changes around 600 CE and eventual collapse around 800-900 CE.
An earlier sequence of events in the Moche Valley, one of the origin valleys of the Moche society, clearly shows one temporarily successful strategy. An earlier society attempted a renewal and expansion of temples during a period of climatic change possibly to demonstrate control over nature or community permanence in the face of change. But, eventually the site was abandoned during another later major El Nino event around 1000-900 BCE (Nesbitt 2016). This sequence closely parallels the Moche sequence - early survival with change but eventual collapse - all seemingly related to climatic events. There are many possible reasons the Moche suffered more intensely following the 600 CE El Niño. The cumulative effects of earlier severe climatic events may have weakened the power and control of the Moche system over their subject regions. Other contributing factors may have been internal civil unrest related to or brought on by a failure of leadership. These factors could also be tied to low agricultural productivity which itself could be related to destruction of irrigation canals due to decades of heavy rainfall.After 600 CE some Moche regions saw either relocation to larger urban settlements or conversely breakdown into smaller settlements. This reorganization may have been strategies to spread risk or offer new economic opportunities but ultimately the Moche system was weakened and eventually replaced by other expanding empires (Lima et al. 2023).
There is now a Super El Niño that is projected to hit from 2026-2027 and will be the first Super El Niño since 2015-2016. It may even surpass the 2023-2024 El Niño, which was one of the 5 strongest on record and played a role in the increased temperatures in 2024. This future Super El Niño could push global temperatures to an all time high and may even cause hurricane season to have below normal conditions. Even though it is not clear all the affects the upcoming El Niño will have on the world, it may be the most impactful one to date if predictions are correct about supercharged rainstorms and droughts.