Pressure Systems edition
Super El Niño Strains Harvests From Britain to Brazil
October 12, 2026
What this edition shows
As a record-breaking super El Niño drives marine heatwaves and disrupts harvest cycles across multiple continents, state officials and agrarian movements are scrambling to buffer fragile food supplies. While British climate ministers push for localized production over emergency stockpiling, Latin American peasant federations like the MST are deploying agroecology against compounding droughts, floods, and volatile commodity markets. These cascading thermal shocks reveal how Pacific ocean oscillations now directly dictate food security and regional labour conditions across both hemispheres.
Reporting and analysis behind this edition 13 sources
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Our food system is vulnerable to El Niño, warns UK climate minister
Extreme weather could damage harvests worldwide, but the answer is more local food production, not stockpiling, Katie White said in an interview with New Scientist
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Why is this monster El Niño so strong?
Though the El Niño is still months from its peak, it is already breaking many records. Two main factors are behind how it became so powerful
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El Niño speeds climate crisis and tests Latin America’s food security
From droughts to floods and fires, El Niño is exposing vulnerabilities in Latin America’s food systems by putting farmers, food supplies and household budgets under growing pressure across the region.
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MST discusses El Niño and points to agroecology as a response to the climate crisis
MST training on the impacts of El Niño brought together science, agroecology, and grassroots organizing to discuss a scenario of climate extremes, the limits of adaptation policies, and ways to protect food production. The post MST discusses El Niño and points to agroecology as a response to the cli…
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The world may never go back to how it was after this monster El Niño
This El Niño is forecast to end around June next year after smashing all records, but its impacts could persist indefinitely in some parts of the world
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The most ambitious ideas to save the world from El Niño
A monster El Niño is brewing in the Pacific Ocean – but there may be ways we can stop the worst impacts from occurring
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What disasters will El Niño bring over the next year?
From wildfires to landslides to coral bleaching, past trends suggest what extreme weather the record El Niño will bring – but the world isn’t prepared
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This Is the Hurricane Season El Niño Foretold
For more than four months, since this hurricane season began, the Atlantic has been eerily placid—a remarkable stretch without a single hurricane. That prolonged calm has been rudely interrupted by Hurricane Isaias, a Category 3 fastball that is bearing down on the Gulf Coast and is expected to make…
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Super El Niño to cause 451,000 heat deaths
Climate scientists are calling the hotter temperatures resulting from El Niño a “postcard from the future.”
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Record El Niño threatens Great Barrier Reef with ecological shift
Researchers are worried about the impact the strongest-known El Niño will have on the Great Barrier Reef, and whether anything can be done to avert the World Heritage Area’s demise
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A Kelvin wave is moving toward BC’s coast. What could that mean for coastal communities?
The effects of this year’s “super El Niño” are beginning to reach Pacific coastlines, carried in part by an advancing Kelvin wave. Its arrival may be nearly imperceptible, but its impacts could ripple through marine ecosystems, economies and coastal communities.
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How the 2026 Super El Niño and Climate Change Are Related
Here’s what we know about the record-setting El Niño on a record-hot planet, and the most important questions scientists are trying to answer.
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How will El Niño affect the world?
From Australia to California, the UK to Peru, turbulent weather is on the way