Persistent effect of El Niño on global economic growth

Abstract

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) shapes extreme weather globally, causing myriad socioeconomic impacts, but whether economies recover from ENSO events and how anthropogenic changes to ENSO will affect the global economy are unknown. Here we show that El Niño persistently reduces country-level economic growth; we attribute $4.1 trillion and $5.7 trillion in global income losses to the 1982–83 and 1997–98 El Niño events, respectively. In an emissions scenario consistent with current mitigation pledges, increased ENSO amplitude and teleconnections from warming are projected to cause $84 trillion in 21st-century economic losses, but these effects are shaped by stochastic variation in the sequence of El Niño and La Niña events. Our results highlight the sensitivity of the economy to climate variability independent of warming and the potential for future losses due to anthropogenic intensification of such variability.