Ologies with Alie Ward - Extreme Meteorology (EL NIÑO) with Marshall Shepherd

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

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Oh, hey, it's that little tiny pumpkin on your co-workers desk that stays good for months at a time. No one knows why. Allie Ward. And there's a secret about that opener at the end of the episode. But let's get to it. So this was supposed to be a bonus episode of last week, but there's so much good info, and it went long. So we decided to just make it a full Tuesday release. So batten your hatches.

And get set to hear once again a guest who got his bachelor's, master's, and PhD in physical meteorology from Florida State University. He's been a NASA researcher, the president of the American Meteorological Society. He was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Weather and Climate Research for the White House. In 2021, he received the American Geological Institutes Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Public Understanding of the Geosciences. He has advised the U.S. Senate, the Department of Defense and Congress on climate and extreme weather. And he's currently a distinguished professor of geography and atmospheric sciences at the University of Georgia. I was there last week hanging out with him. He co-hosts the Weather Channel's excellent podcast, Weather Geeks.

He writes for Forbes. He's authored several books, including a kid's book called Dr. Fred's Weather Watch. So we did air an encore of his excellent meteorology episode last week while I was in Athens, Georgia, to attend a lecture series, which he hosted and hi to everyone who I saw there. It was great to see you all there. Hours before the talk, we popped into his office to learn all about El Nino. And we're going to get there in a second, but first thank you to patrons of Ologies for supporting the show from day one and submitting questions before we record. You too can join for a dollar a month at patreon.com slash Ologies. Thanks to everyone out there in Ologies merch from Ologiesmerch.com.

And as always, thanks to the listeners who leave reviews for the show. It helps so much. I read them all. And I'm not afraid to prove it, such as this one from Harbinger of Cats, who wrote, I was trying to pin down why I like this show so much when it's outside my usual favorite genres. But then my five-year-old discovered one of my favorite shows as a kid, the Magic School Bus. And is Gremmy the Liz to Allie's Frizzle? Thank you, Harbinger of Cats.

That was a very nice review. I'm quite flattered. And also thank you for being willing to acknowledge my 14-year-old daughter, Grammy, aka G-G-Ramlin, who is a dog. Now, if you have kiddos and you need classroom-s-save episodes of ologies that are G-rated, you can look for the spin-off show. It's called Smolog-E-S. You can subscribe there. It's a separate podcast.

Wherever you get podcasts, they're shorter, all-ages versions. Also, thank you to sponsors of ologies who make it possible for us to donate to a cause of theologist choosing every week. And thank you to lead editor and Mercedes-Maitland who put on a producer's hat for this episode and did so much research for it as I was gallivanting around getting interviews this past week. Absolutely, ACE's work. Thank you again, Mercedes.

And if you're like, dude, I don't know if I can handle some weather doomerism. I implore you to listen so that you know the flimflam, you know how to read these climate articles in the news. You know what to tell friends and family who otherwise might not care and what you can do to instigate change and keep yourself safer. Just please consider it required hearing. It will affect you and other people you'll never know. Also, I'm talking really fast, I'm just trying to get the episode. Okay, so let's get into what is an El Nino, a Lanina. What's going on with these hurricane seasons this year? How the Pacific waters affect you all over the globe. What did the UN say about making a strategic retreat?

on climate change mitigation? How have El Nino weather patterns changed over time? What's dust from Africa got to do with it? Should you quit your job and join a roofing company? And what is on the literal horizon for humanity this coming winter and beyond with writer, on-air correspondent, professor, climate scientist, and meteorologist, Dr. Marshall Shepard. I'm taking full advantage of the fact that I get to be here with you in person. Absolutely.

Do you need, are my levels fine? testing. Yeah, levels are great. All right. You're very familiar with podcasts. I am. Well, we've had you on before in our meteorology episode. In the 10 years we've done this, we have very few return guests because typically we learn

what you need to know. Sure. Number one, you're the goat. And also, weather is a moving target these days. We just heard from the UN that there's just kind of going to pull back on cautionary measures with climate change. So let's get some clarity on this real quick, as it's a foundation of the episode. So on September 2nd, the United Nations Environment Program published the report titled

Limiting Overshoot, Navigating Exceeds of 1.5 D.C.S. And pathways toward return. So this was published, and the journalist Seth Borenstein, who wrote for the AP News, opened up an article saying, in a strategic retreat in the fight against climate change, the United Nations has acknowledged that Earth has lost its chance to prevent some of the worst of global warming's harms. So that is called a lead in an article. It's the first sentence and it is what gets you hooked. So Seth's one statement about that strategic retreat got picked up and replicated in headlines in major outlets all over the world. You probably saw it memed a lot in terms of dumerism like we're cooked.

I saw it too. But it's not quite accurate. So nowhere in that UN report does it mean. mention retreat. In fact, the UN doubles down on mitigation efforts saying every fraction of a degree avoided and every year by which overshoot is shortened will save lives, protect ecosystems, and reduce economic losses. So if anything, what they're retreating from is saying it's still possible not to cross the 1.5 degree threshold. They're like, well, we miss that boat on the rising seas, but let's keep working. So some other. Takeaways in their report, and I'll quote, there are no good outcomes in remaining above 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Risks and impacts intensify with every fraction of a degree. They can either grow with time or emerge suddenly and include, they list, intensified extreme weather, ecosystem loss, and submersion of small island developing states and low-lying coastal cities. Glaciers could also lose more than a quarter of their mass by 2,100 raising sea levels. also severe damage to human health, food security, water supplies, nature, cities, infrastructure, and economies. So, for example, global food production, they say it could decline by up to 14% by 2050 in the absence of effective adaptation to this. And they also note that the world must strive to minimize peak temperatures, return to 1.5 degrees Celsius or below as soon as possible, and reduce the vulnerability of society's community. and economies. So a graph also came out that showed this particular El Nino is set to be the most severe El Nino system that any living human on the planet has ever seen. Maybe the worst one in

a thousand years. So the warming of the ocean, driving the storms and then the droughts, is already hitting the previous record. And it's months ahead of schedule in terms of warming. It's warming at four standard deviations above what we've seen. So I sat down with Marshall on September 3rd, last week or so, and recorded all of this the day after the reports came out. How did that affect the meteorological community? Did you see that decision coming? Because that was just a few days ago. It was just a few days ago. But, you know, what we do is weather experts and climate experts is we are detectives. We're looking at what happens with weather and climate, and we just have to provide objective information, governing bodies, international panels, and so forth, have a role to play.

But I try to just keep my focus on providing sound guidance and sound information for policy makers and decision makers. Look, climate change is the crisis of a generation and generations to come. And we are seeing the DNA in today's weather, in today's hurricanes, heat waves, and floods. And so we need action. Someone will have to take action. So it was been interesting to see the decision, but my goal and my role has not changed, and I'm unwavering in it. Yeah, for sure. I think it made it more real to a lot of people who haven't thought of climate change more than just like maybe a little hotter in the summer. Like, what's one, two degrees Celsius? I can handle that. No, exactly. I think the challenge we face with climate change.

and the messaging that we face is that people have experience with the weather. I have a friend that's in physics, and they never get asked about nuclear engineering, but people live the weather. Yes. And they know it, and they have these sort of perceptions and narratives about it. Oh, yeah, it's just a hot day. Or, oh, sure, I've lived through that hurricane. But we know that on the extreme end of all spectrums of weather, we're seeing increased

frequency and intensity of events. And unfortunately, what worries me, Allie, about that is that those are the extreme end of weather. benchmarks that people have in the past haven't prepared them for current and future storms, and that could cost lives and property. And that UN report addresses the future. It says carbon dioxide removal, the process of removing carbon from the air and storing it through planting forests or other means will be needed in addition to not instead of sustained reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions.

And it notes impacts are already well on their way. It says as a result of permanent changes, many communities may have relocated or changed livelihoods to face these challenges of readjustment. So climate refugees, food shortages, floods, droughts, sea levels, ecology. They mentioned that strong political will and multilateralism, countries working together, effective policies, inclusive governance and finance, these are all important enabling conditions for action. The UN says how quickly and strongly this action happens will define the trajectory of the pathway, which is like no shit, of course. And they say that countries with greater historical responsibilities for climate change, and I'm looking at me, United States should act the hardest and the fastest. Countries disproportionately impacted by climate change have to be part of the global decision-making and action. So your country, your territory is impacted.

you've got to be able to have a say. And then the UN drops this banger of a sentence, this generation needs to act, not just the next. I think it's interesting when I was growing up, or even in the last couple of decades, it was like, watch out, climate change is going to knock on the door soon. And it's been interesting to see the shift of like, oh, it's in the door. It's sitting at the dinner table.

It is not only sitting at the dinner table. It's having dessert, appetizers, and all the main courses. Yeah. We are in the midst, and so I very much frown on any narrative that discusses climate change in the future tense. We used to talk about what's going to happen in 2050 or 2100. It's here and it's loud and it's only going to get worse because we are not really doing the things we need to do from a mitigation of carbon emissions standpoint. Now, we are seeing more adaptation approaches because we, in some places, have realized things are going to happen. And so we need to adapt or be more resilient to them.

But that's a really strong message that we all need to hear and internalize. We are living the climate change that the scientists and the papers and studies suggested that we would live 20, 30 years ago. And here it is. So if you haven't seen the 2006 climate documentary an inconvenient truth featuring former vice president, Al Gore, it might be a lovely primer and kind of just a skip down memory lane. from a more hopeful time. And a year after its release in 2007, data showed that 66% of those who saw the film had changed their mind about global warming. They now believed in it. The vast majority of people who saw it said that they were more aware of the problem, and 75% had changed some of their habits.

Even though, of course, fossil fuel companies knew about the impacts of carbon emissions long before 2006. Why hasn't it gotten better, though? So in May of 2026 NPR interviewed Al Gore, 20th anniversary of an inconvenient truth. And Gore reflected on the two decades since that film's release, and he cited a landmark 2010 Citizens United Court decision, is what it was called. It supported corporations and nonprofits financially supporting political candidates. And in a pro-fossal move, Mitch McConnell was all for it. He said, let the corporations support their favorite political candidates. So yeah, now industries can kind of butter the bread of government representatives who would otherwise keep them less accountable. So that's nice. Again, what can you do? So this year, Gore reminded us to get involved in the political conversation in the country where you live because policy is the most important thing that needs to be changed. He says that we're still subsidizing fossil fuels all over the world. Taxpayers are being forced to subsidize the maiming of humanity's future. He did not put it lightly. And he said that we should be taxing carbon, not

subsidizing this pollution. Now, what about your personal carbon footprint? So according to oceanology guest and climate scientist Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson, your personal ability to reduce carbon emissions is very tiny compared to what fossil fuels and agriculture industries could be doing on a grand scale if they were legally required to act in the interest of humanity instead of the interest of profits. But another change since 2006 is technology. And here it is, and likely in some cases, underestimated. Because, again, in those early days, the climate models were not as good as they are today. But now we have these robust Earth system models that connect the ocean to the atmosphere, to the biosphere and cryosphere.

And so we are getting quite a few things right if you go back and verify, even with those weaknesses in the model. And so it's a steam train rolling down the track. And so far, it's just more steam being added. Unfortunately, we need to cut back significantly. Yeah. You know, I did a tempestology episode, I think a year ago, about hurricanes. And at the time, you know, I thought, oh, as west coasters, or maybe if you live in an area that's not prone to hurricanes, maybe you're in Europe or you're far from a coast. Hurricanes are like, yikes, that would be terrible. And now I'm on the west coast and we have a Nel Nino rolling in. Yes. And do you know where the Altadena fires were? We live a few miles from. Okay.

Luckily, we were very fine. But, I mean, it's that area also with El Nino coming and mudslides and being in the hills and all of that. Right. Yeah. And, you know, that's really interesting because you all tend to, in these strong El Nino's, get these really strong storm events, rainstorms, mudslides. It's not always a given, but, you know, on average, that's what we tend to see in California for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

We're already seeing evidence of it in Chile and the Atacama. You get these big snow events and rain events. So it's a really interesting pattern. It's so far holding the form, all the hurricanes we're seeing in Hawaii, the lack of hurricanes we're seeing in the Atlantic Basin. These are all telltale signals. Oh, my God. Yeah. So El Nino and La Nina, one's warm, one's coldish, but yeah, can you break it down?

They are a sister-brother team, but in some cases, you don't want to see this brother showing up to dinner. It's a part of something called the El Nino Southern Oscillation. It's a naturally varying climate pattern that we see in the ocean and atmosphere. El Nino is the warm phase of the Enso. So Enso, side note, stands for El Nino Southern Oscillation. And it's a biggie in terms of climate phenomena. Some climate scientists say this one walloping toward us, the El Nino, is likely again to be the largest in at least a thousand years. And yes, El Nino is the so-called male phase of it.

And in mirroring of history, it wasn't until the 1990s that the female inverse pattern called La Nina was recognized. Women actually didn't even legally have to be included in clinical trials until 1993. So it's only fitting that the female pattern go ignored for a while. But the term Enso, the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the name was already in place. So by the time they figured out La Nina, she had to take the male name. But Enso includes both of them. La Nina is the coal phase. What does that really mean?

Every two to seven years, we see an El Nino. That's a naturally occurring process. Essentially, we have to talk about some ologies, meteorology, and then some agraphies as well, oceanography, because they're really a coupled system. So we see every two to seven years the trade winds in the Pacific Ocean will weaken and even reverse. And so that allows warm water from the Western Pacific to come moving back eastward. It also shuts down cold water that's upwelling near the South American coast. And so you get warming conditions.

That's the El Nino. Where the name come from, Peruvian fishermen around Christmas time, notice that they weren't catching as much fish because you're shutting off that cold upwelling and all of the nutrients that the fish need. And so they weren't catching as many fish. And so that's where the term El Nino comes from. And so the opposite phase is, you know, when those trade winds pick back up or even strengthen, you push that water back to the Western Pacific and things get colder and you get the Laninia pattern.

They both have impacts on the atmosphere are jet stream patterns and weather around the world, including California where you live and Georgia, where I live. What parts of the world might be impacted by this El Nino? Is it safe to say all of it? It's just about all aspects of the world where people, live will be impacted. So, for example, on the west coast of the United States, some of our stronger El Nino's, and even some of the more moderate ones have affected rainfall, created more storm rain events, flooding, mudslides, and so forth. Whereas here in the southeast, we tend to be

wetter and also have cooler conditions. And so oftentimes people here in the south get excited because that could be a snowier winter. Now, you know, we only get a few inches of snow here in Georgia a year, so people get excited about that prospect. But the negative aspects are certainly concerning. One potentially positive aspect of Elinio, if you put it that way, is it tends to reduce Atlantic hurricane activity. So in 2026, we're seeing reduced hurricane activity. In fact, as of September 8th, we've not had a hurricane form in the Atlantic. We've had a couple tropical storms. We're likely going to break a record because the latest forming hurricane on record is September 11th. I don't remember the year. I remember one of the storms was Gustav.

So this episode is going up on September 15th, 2026, and thus far, we are Atlantic hurricane-less. So Gustav's 2002-September 11 hurricane distinction was the latest one we've had on record since 1941. So whenever we get our first 2006 hurricane, that will be a new record for the latest. There's no Atlantic hurricane on the horizon, so we're going to break that record. So that's good for the East Coast on the other side of the last. L'Henio, we tend to see more active Pacific hurricane season. So that's why Hawaii has been dealing with several named storms. Even as we're talking today, Hurricane Lowell is just near Hawaii.

And I think was the first ever tornado watch ever issued for the state of Hawaii because of Hurricane Lull. This morning, a state of emergency in Hawaii as Lull moves west of the islands as a category two. For the first time in the state's history, Hawaii, placed under a tornado watch, the hurricane bringing wind gust of up to 84 miles an hour on Kauai. So around the world, these jet stream patterns, this large river of air moving through the atmosphere, that's really what governs weather patterns. And so we see shifts parts of South America along the coast, west coast of South America,

wet and snowy, but then there could be drought in places like the Amazon and other parts of the world. Oh, wow. So it's really a complicated couplet or mix of impacts based on the jet stream. And in terms of the named storms, did we just have a storm Dolly? Was there a Dolly? We did. There was a name in place already? Hurricane names are in place well in advance of the season.

In fact, we used the same name list every six years or so. They rotate. The World Meteorological Organization essentially is the keeper of the names. And Dolly was on the 2026 list, even as we lost the amazing Dolly part in this year, literally days to weeks later, the storm Dolly form. That was a tropical storm didn't last very long, but the moisture from Dolly was very beneficial for Puerto Rico, who had been in significant drought and even parts of Florida. So I thought it was such an irony and in a good way, because Dolly Parton was such an amazing soul, such an amazing entertainer, someone that I

enjoyed, and I enjoy weather as well. And so the juxtaposition of those two sort of cultural and scientific events, it really is the spirit of science, humanities, and life. It is so something to celebrate, too, especially when you think about drought-stricken Puerto Rico, and Dolly's always helping someone, you know, especially someone overlooked. And so, yeah, it definitely brings some mist to my eyes. It really was, because Puerto Rico, you know, talking about them for a moment, they still likely have some recovery from Hurricane Maria back in 2017. And this year, again, drought was in place.

And part of that drought is likely related to El Nino because oftentimes Atlantic storms, hurricanes, and tropical storms can be a source of moisture for Puerto Rico and some of the islands. But this year, because of the impacts of El Nino on the Atlantic Basin and other things, too, African dust and so forth, they've been really dry. So let's take a listen to the 2024 tempestology episode, a little excerpt from here with storm experts, Matt Lanzah and Dr. Kim Wood. And this explanation was seated from a very excellent patron question. In terms of formation, Heather Crane wanted to know, I've always heard that hurricanes start as dust storms in Africa. How true is that? It's kind of actually fascinating. You know, we always think about, yeah, the storms come off Africa.

They go across the ocean. They end up hitting land and all this stuff. So first off, with the dust, the Sahara Desert in Africa is obviously going to be a massive source of sand, dust, etc. And during usually the early part of hurricane season, June and July, typically what happens is everything flows from like northern Africa, across the Atlantic, into North America, into South America, all that. So what happens is you get all this dust from Africa that gets picked up from the Sahara and blown across the ocean and places like Houston, Miami, New Orleans. During hurricane season, you'll see frequently just dusty skies. The sky turns like a little bit of like a milky gray color. And this is all Saharan dust that's been transported halfway around the world.

Oh, my God. Yeah, it's fascinating. And they deal with this a lot in Puerto Rico and in the Caribbean Islands as well. And what's really cool about it is it's a huge part of the planetary ecosystem. It ends up helping to enrich soil on this side of the world. Wow. So like they found evidence in South America that I think in the Amazon, there's a lot of fertile land and a lot of it ends up like almost being seeded by the dust that comes off of Africa to help make it more fertile.

What? Yeah, it's so cool. But what it also does is it inhibits hurricanes because hurricanes need moisture. They need moisture and dry air is dust. Dust comes from the desert, desert's dry, that's dry air. Hurricanes don't like that. So that explains a lot why the first part of hurricane season is usually typically quiet because we're often seeing, you know, all this dust come off Africa and basically limit the development of storms. So that's a really cool feature. So as we get to August and September,

and things start to ramp up, you get these thunderstorm complexes that start to form in Africa. And they move all the way across the continent in a similar vein, kind of what we see in Central America during this time of year, parts of South America, where you get, you know, thunderstorms blow up during daytime heating. You know, you can almost time your clock to having thunderstorms, and they move through and that's that. And these complexes or storms form and they dissipate. And when they travel over the ocean, they are called very confusingly waves, but waves of air. I don't know why of all the words they didn't think of another name, but I'm not the boss. Now, quick note, remember that we call these cyclonic storms, typhoons when they're in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Those are the coasts of Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, and that is known as typhoon. Alley, which sounds like it could be the absolute worst dive bar in San Diego or something. But activity in Typhoon Alley, that can depend on whether we have a warmer El Nino year or a colder

Lanina. And remember that they are measured differently, but essentially anything over what we would call a category four is called a super typhoon in that northwest Pacific basin. Now, as for the Atlantic hurricanes. El Nino, for warmer weather, means potentially fewer large cyclonic storms. Now, for the northwest Pacific basin, again, that's typhoon alley on the coast of Asia. El Nino means more and bigger typhoons. Now, sometimes in North America, Matt told me, we may have a Midwest storm that just goes and takes a dip in the Gulf of Mexico, picks up water, and then becomes a bigger storm in the Bama hurricane. Also, let's not forget, about storm systems off the coast of India and in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean,

which are just called cyclones. We don't call them typhoons. We don't call them hurricanes necessarily just call them cyclones. Now, 1970s, Bola Cyclone, which formed in the Bay of Bengal, which is east of the Indian Peninsula and west of Thailand, it made landfall in what's now known as Bangladesh. And the flooding into the Ganges River Basin caused an estimated half a million deaths. It was the worst natural catastrophe in recorded history. And the fallout from it helped spark 1971's Bangladesh Liberation War, which led to the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Bengalis and up to three million deaths. Now, for more on genocide, including recent events in Gaza, we have a genocidalogy episode with expert Dr. Dirk Moses, and it's linked in the show notes. So again,

that was from the two-part tempestology episode about hurricanes, which will leave. link in the show notes. It's such a good one. And I know climate change and losing Dolly Parton. It's a real double whammy. I'm with you. But we do have some advice on what to do to mitigate and who to support. Just by listening to this whole episode, you're arming yourself to help educate people. If everyone in the world knew more, we'd have more advocacy. We'd have more pressure on policymakers and ultimately a better shot at pump and some breaks. So let's make a difference. with Dolly in our hearts. And so Dolly's moisture actually came along and provided a little bit of relief for what

has been a pretty dire scenario there in Puerto Rico and other parts of the island. Yeah. I imagine she brought literal rainbows. Yeah. Like think of all the rainbows that Dolly brought to Puerto Rico. You know, to tie it back to our conversation about climate, climate and extreme weather, storms, flooding, hurricanes, heat, they affect everyone. Everyone's exposed to these events.

But unfortunately, there are some people across the planet here in the U.S. and the global south and elsewhere that are disproportionately sensitive or vulnerable to these events and have least capacity or resilience to bounce back for them. And so I think Dolly understood that in life, and we need to think about that as we see this ever-increasing spectrum of extreme weather. And of course, these disasters are ramping up all over the globe. a few weeks ago in late August, flooding and debris flows at the China-Napal border, killed over 1,300 people, another 5,000-plus are still missing. So the death toll is going up literally minute by minute. And Canadian Mercedes-Maitland, editor and producer of this episode, notes that, closer to home for her, a recent environment and climate change Canada report

is predicting a potential 5 degrees Celsius increase in temperature if we carry on. as usual. But northern parts of Canada, majority indigenous regions like the territory of Nunavut, have a 50% chance of seeing 10 degrees of warming in the winters. 10 degrees. And we learned in our fire ecology episode with Dr. Gavin Jones and indigenous fire ecology episode with Dr. Amy Christensen, wildfires across the country disproportionately impact indigenous communities. And again, a reminder from the UN report, countries with greater historical responsibility for climate change should act the hardest and the fastest countries disproportionately impacted by climate change must be part of the global decision-making process and action.

How do you foresee, or what geographic areas do you think will be hit hardest by this El Nino that's coming? We're already seeing parts of South America experiencing significant rain, at least along the West Coast. we will likely, because keep in mind, El Nino, the worst of it, tends to peak later in the winter. We're still in the fall, and we're already seeing this particular El Nino surpass some of the strongest El Nino events that we've ever seen. 1982, 1983. We're on par with 2015, 2016. And yet we aren't even to the peak of this one yet. And so I think that's ominous for how it will affect the jet stream pattern. So I really expect many places.

It's really hard to pinpoint one place sort of being the bullseye because this jet stream is literally a wave. If you think about a wave in a string or a wave in an ocean, that jet stream has these ridges and troughs moving around the planet. So jet streams are bands of strong wind. They generally blow from west to east all across the globe. They impact weather, air travel, and many other things that take place in our atmosphere. That is a quote from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which as a government organization, it underwent major billions of dollars of cuts and the termination of over 1,000 climate scientists since President Trump's January 2025 inauguration

and the Doge cuts made by the only trillionaire on planet Earth, who I don't think, is he any longer involved in the government? Unclear. But from the data we've been allowed to capture and from other countries, Yes, the graph of where the 2026 El Nino is heading is months and months ahead in temperature of the historically hotter El Nino's of 1982, 83, as well as the 2015-2016 record El Nino. And Dr. Shepard reminds us that we don't tend to see the peak of the El Nino maximum morning until later in the winter and we're already at the max-max.

So can you single-handedly stop the storm? from coming. Unfortunately, you can't personally. But one thing any individual can do, according to gambling site Kalshi, is make some money by betting or assigning bots to wager crypto on climate disasters. So a rep from Kalshi recently went on record saying that weather and climate disasters are one of the fastest growing and most crucial categories of online betting, growing 5,000 percent in the past. year to a $1.1 billion market. So you can bet. And with El Nino,

it is displaced southward. And so, for example, parts of North America, you know, even into the northern tier of the U.S., they contend to be warmer. Whereas down south, we actually can be much cooler and perhaps have wetter conditions. And these

things affect things like agricultural productivity. Some maybe are winners. Some are losers. I look at some of the places like the Amazonia or even the Sahelian regions, if they become drier, these have massive cascading impacts on human beings. And just a heads up, the Sahelian region is a nearly 6,000 kilometer or 3,700 mile wide belt across that broadest part of Africa. Picture like a horizontal strip of land from the west coast hump on the Atlantic stretching from Senegal all the way to Sudan on the Red Sea. And that is a transition,

between the drier Sahara Desert to the north and the more humid savannah's south of it. As long as we're doing some visualizing, let's get back to that El Nino graph that shows the 26 ocean warming lines floating far above all previous years on record and just climbing. If El Nino were a student, this year it would be setting the curve. I've done a lot of thinking, and I don't like it. You showed me a graph that was chilling, and we saw the year where we're at, The temperature peak in September is higher than the temperature peak of one of the worst Elinians in memory. So we're already where the peak was.

Just weather ever change on a dime like that. Like, you know how sometimes, oh, there'll be a big storm, and then, oh, it turned out a change. Is there any way that that's not going to keep going up? Yeah, I'd like to think so, Allie. We use data from the ocean. Thank goodness we have things like buoys and submersible. instrumentation and satellites. I spent much of the early part of my career working at NASA, developing satellite missions to study the planet. And so we have all of these things to take the

Earth's temperature. And one of the things that we're seeing is that not only do we see extremely warm, we're two to three degrees warmer than normal. Now, as a reference point, we start thinking about El Nino when we're 0.5 degrees Celsius above average water temperatures in the Central Pacific. And we're already two to three degrees warmer. And it's going to like that. get hotter. And one of the things that is of concern is not just the surface ocean temperatures, but that subsurface water. I have seen estimates that it's eight degrees warmer than normal below the surface as well. So all of that suggests to me that there's no way we're going to see a downturn in this warming event that's associated with the 2026, 2027 El Niño.

I fully expect by November into through February, we will see increasingly amplifying El Nino conditions. I saw some data from the UN or the World Meteorological Organization saying it's virtually certain, 100% certain that this El Nino will be in place and going strongly in February of 2027. Oh, my God. You know, as someone who lives on the West Coast, who might maybe not be as prepared for hurricane-type conditions, what type of? Sure. What types of things should people be doing? You know, it's interesting because I think over the past, I'd say 30 to 40 years, West Coast inhabitants have been very aware of El Nino because of the experiences. And so I think in many ways, relative to other parts of the country, people like yourself that live on the West Coast have an attention span for the El Nino that perhaps others don't. I think people generally are aware of El Nino, but don't really internalize how significant it can be for weather, whereas you know that it can lead to very dangerous rainstorms, mudslides.

I think something else that has helped with the messaging on the West Coast of atmospheric rivers. 30 to 50 percent of the West Coast rainfall in a given year in the U.S. comes from these atmospheric rivers, these narrow ribbons of water vapor that are actualized into rainfall as they landfall along the West Coast. I think that with El Nino, you have this warm pool of water, strong moisture resources as well, and that bodes ominously for the types of rainstorms that you've alluded to. Now, the thing that we should also say is that when we think about weather and climate, we have to think about average conditions. So every El Nino does not behave the same way. They have their own personalities in the same way that I often say, weather is your mood and climate is your personality. These things have personality. But what we know is that their average personality for the West Coast is a lot of rain

and a lot of sort of natural hazards related to landslides and mudslides and so forth. And so I would encourage, as I have written before when it comes to hurricanes and weather, one of the things that I often talk about here in the southeast, we deal with a lot of nighttime tornadoes. And so one of the things that I often tell people in my writing for Forbes or on the Weather Channel is to have a night plan for weather. What I mean by that is the same way that we brush our teeth or wash our faces at night, have some sense in this if you live in the southeast of what the weather is going to be like before you go to bed in case you have the spring into action. I would suggest, and I suspect many do, that people need to have an El Nino plan. Have a plan of action for El Nino.

Know where all of your important papers are. Know what the tendencies are for weather extremes that tend to be associated with El Nino where you live. know who your local national weather service office is so that you can consult them every location, whether you're in L.A. or San Francisco or Sacramento, has a national weather service office that's responsible for providing them with messaging and warnings. So I have those comprised as a part of what I would call your El Nino or La Nina plan, but in this case, we're talking about El Nino. And, Ali, I am not a scientist that speaks in hyperbole. But this 2026, 27, an El Nino could be the strongest El Nino that anyone alive on the planet today has seen. Oh, my God. That is, that's so chilling to think that no one on planet Earth has seen an El Nino system to this magnitude. To this magnitude.

And again, it's not there yet, but it's certainly trending in that direction. I wouldn't be surprised. I am happy to be absolutely wrong, by the way, with that prediction. Yeah. But certainly all of the sort of data that we're seeing suggests, you know, you've seen terms like super El Nino and Godzilla El Nino. We're talking about the so-called Godzilla, Godzilla, Godzilla, Godzilla, El Nino. You know, it's interesting because many of the professionals in my field of meteorology or climatology sort of frown at those types of sort of hyperbolic terminologies or adjectives for El Nino. I've seen it in many of the sort of expert group chats that I'm in and so forth.

Why do we have to call it a Super El Nino? You know, I'm on the fence on that because I also have my ear tuned to how public consumes information. And sometimes public consumes information in a very different way than those of us that are scholars that do that think about things very carefully and meticulously. And so one of the things that I know Super El Nino has gotten the attention of the average person. And so we want to get people's attention because there's. significant risk with this level of El Nino. Yeah. What about the southern hemisphere or more distant parts of the world, anything that they can expect? Yeah, I think that they can expect, depending on whether you're in South America,

Africa, parts of Asia, there tend to be sort of these oscillating patterns of dry, wet conditions, depending on where the inverted part of that wave is. We call that a trough. And the hump part of the wave, we call those ridges. And so where the troughs set up, that tends to be where the more disturbed wet weather will be, where the ridges set up, that tends to be where there are hotter and drier conditions. That varies, and so that's why it's kind of hard to pinpoint exactly where in the southern hemisphere. Yeah, but typically the El Nino pattern has its most significant impacts on the northern hemisphere because of the various land masses that are in place. One thing that we do know about El Nino's and particularly strong ones that

affect the entire world, as that we know the planet is warming, duthoranthropogenic climate change, superimposed on a naturally varying climate system. In other words, greenhouse gases and land use change and so forth. El Nino is an additional steroid on top of that warming. So in other words, if you look at the last several decades of warming, you clearly see the interannual or annual and seasonal variability, but you see the warming trend that's associated with global warming. But the El Nino years tend to be even warmer. And so there's this additional warming steroid on top of the warming trend that we're seeing for other reasons. Oh, my goodness.

Can I ask you a couple questions from listeners? Sure. Amazing. Okay. You all, per usual, had great questions. And so we cramped some in. But before we open that jack in the box, let's donate to a cause that's close to Dr. Shepard's heart. And that is the International Nonprofit Institute for Sustainable Communities, which supports communities by creating,

implementing and scaling equitable climate change mitigation and resilient solutions for those most profoundly impacted by the global climate crisis. They also ensure that solutions emerge from within the community. So you can learn all about them at sustain.org. And that's linked in the show notes and that donation was made possible by sponsors of the show. Okay, thank you sponsors for that. Patrons submit questions for guests before we record via patreon.com slash ology. So let's reach into the canvas tote of the mailbag. Some great questions from Mads and Kelly Shaver wanted to know, how will this El Nino affect food supplies? And Mads asked, what does this mean for global food security? Yeah, no, food security is already tenuous because we're seeing stress on regions of agricultural

productivity. One of the things that I'm always concerned about with El Nino is that, again, certain places are winters when it comes to rainfall, certain places or losers when it comes to rainfall in terms of drought. If those. hups or ridges that I talked about set up in very productive regions agriculturally, that certainly means drought. And that is not, we already have a stressed, water stress and food supply system because of the broader climate warming that we're seeing in our system. And so, again, when we think about El Nino patterns, it's hard to give very concrete specifics on where people are going to be most impacted because it very much depends on the sort of tenor and pattern of where you're

are those troughs and ridges set up. But one of the things that we do know is that there are effects on agricultural productivity. And again, we're a global economy now. So when we see, for example, if you're following what's happening in our country, a lot of our sort of food supply is coming from elsewhere right now, particularly on the meat side of the house. And so when we start to disrupt the global agricultural productivity supply chain, that often leads to increased prices and so forth,

One of the things that I'm also very concerned about is even the marine fisheries. Remember, one of the things that I, the reason we call it El Nino is because South American fishermen saw their fish supply go down because of the warming waters in the eastern Pacific. So anywhere we see those increased anomalies or heat patterns in the ocean, that's going to affect the fisheries in those regions as well. So this weekend I was having dinner with my dear friend, Chef Miles Thompson of Baby Bistro in L.A. You heard from him in the pectinology episode about scallops, and we talked about baby bistro's natural wines in the inology episode about wine with under Mac. But Miles, the chef, is meticulous. Sourcing food is a really huge part of his ethos as a chef. I've known him for decades. He gets up at like 4 a.m. to hit the farmer's market himself. He knows all the vendors personally. And we were talking this weekend about El Nino. And he told me that fishing is greatly affected already. And the independent fishmongers, he's, he's, he,

worked with for years or just they're not finding catches. The fish are seeking colder waters. And Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson told me years ago, billions of people in coastal communities and indigenous people whose survival relies on aquatic food supply are already being greatly impacted. Droughts, of course, are another factor. And Mercedes, who studied anthropology, reminds us that El Nino's are super relevant to archaeologists, given how often they have these major impacts on cultures and societies, mostly through what they do to our ability to feed ourselves, whether it's because of floods or droughts. So change. It's coming. And to quote anthropologist, Dr. Joseph Tainter from the collapsology episode, also the author of The Collapse of Complex

Societies. Humans just muddle through. That's just what we do. It's what we've always done. That's what we always do. We muddle through. And this is a sentiment that's been widely shared and promoted. by philosopher M. Conaheigh, who famously coined this term. You just got to keep living, man. L-I-V-I-N. And, oh, by the way, it's not being talked about a lot, but there's a warm blob further north in the Pacific that we're observing right this year as well.

It's not the El Nino, but it's a significant warm blob that is likely affecting fisheries in that region as well. Yes, a warm blob, a term coined over a decade ago, by Washington State Climate Scientist, Dr. Nick Bond. This is a huge blob of warm water. It's not cooling down, as expected. The Atlantic has a cold blob. We all feared that humanity's demise would be caused by a mucous, drooling, extraterrestrial machine creature.

But really, it could be by these blobs of our own making. Also, blobs, bomb cyclones, atmospheric rivers, there are some pretty good terms. I know that you were saying the value of a Godzilla El Nino on the public tongue, but just in terms of tracks on a heavy metal album, pretty good, pretty good. Yeah, you know, it's really interesting because we've had a lot of these terms, DeRatio, bomb cyclone, Habou, which is a large dust storm. and people will ask me all of the times, are you guys making these things up as you go along? Are you building this airplane as you're flying it?

And really, in reality, many of these terms have been around in the meteorological and climatological lexicon for many decades. But because of an awareness in the media and social media landscape, they're out there more. And so, you know, there's a terminology that I'll throw out since we're talking El Nino onologies, something called a teleconnection. So, yeah, that sounds like this kindred spirit that we have between two people or teleconnection or we're teleporting somewhere. But the way the weather patterns around the world are affected by El Nino is because of these teleconnections, which means you get this massive blob of hot water in the East Central Pacific, El Nino, that leads to a change in the column of air above that ocean. and that perturbs or disrupts the jet stream. Think about a wave pattern in a pond, and maybe you put some sticks or a rock in between that way,

but you disrupt it. And so this disruption, that is El Nino, causes this teleconnection pattern in the atmosphere that propagates these weather changes all around the planet. I mean, it's all, everything's pretty much linked, so you can't expect it to not be a teeter-totter. Hey, babe, new open letter just dropped. It's called projected amplification of global warming by warming-induced greenhouse gas emissions, and it's like, hey, all those wildfires amplified and sparked by climate change. Yeah, those are putting more carbon in the atmosphere. They're compounding our problems. It's called a feedback loop, babe. Anyway, go to work. Make sure you pay your parking tickets. Floss. Get that marketing deck on corporate's desk by 9 a.m. Wednesday, and do you need lip filler? You probably do. Oh, your deodorant has P-FAS, babe.

One of the most fascinating things for me as a meteorologist is that if you look at the fluid flow on the planet by looking at satellite imagery, weather satellite imagery, and you see this massive fluid flow of clouds and water vapor and storms. I'm a weather geek, so I can stare at that for hours. But what it brings to bear is that there's this massive envelope of fluid wrapped on a plant. planet that's rotating and hurling through space. And so there's all kinds of fluid dynamics and thermodynamics. And so it is very much connected. You know, just like an eddy or a whirl in the Mississippi River upstream in Minneapolis, Minnesota somewhere, that eddy and the temperature of the water has downstream effects all the way to St. Louis. And so that's how our atmosphere behaves. And that's what's so fascinating about it. And candidly, that's what gives it some

degree of predictability because fluid dynamics, they are governed by physics equations. There are certain Navier-Stokes equations, thermodynamic equations, continuity equations. So that's how we do weather prediction. We actually try to predict using complex calculus and equations how that fluid changes one day out, two days out, seven days out, ten days out. We predict that fluid flow. And so it's very much connected in the most subtle of ripples, whether it's an El Nino or a mountain range or a massive amount of dust blowing off the Sahel region of Africa. Those subtle ripples can change those weather patterns and those forecasts. Well, you know, Jenna Congdon, Hilda Z, Kam K, Paul Hoffman, Julia Reicheltz, Greg Wallach, Demi Espinoza, Robin Cun, and Dr. Primo Delacotta, all wanted to know about monitoring.

How is that predicted? what kind, where do you, how do you sample? There's such a big ocean. Oh, it is. And that's the beauty of satellites, which is where I cut my teeth as a young scientist at NASA. We don't just use satellites, but we certainly rely heavily when we're monitoring the global ocean on satellites. Because if you think about our planet, the vast majority of our planet is covered in ocean. The challenge with that is we can't put neat instruments out over much of that because it's ocean.

Yeah. And then there are remote areas, too, mountains, deserts and so forth. And so in the last several decades, NASA, NOAA, the European Space Agency, the Japanese Space Agency, Jaxsa, have worked together on this coordinated observing network from space. And so we can measure things like sea surface temperature, wave height, salinity in the ocean, ocean color. So yes, scientists measure the wavelengths of light bouncing back off of all kinds of surfaces and atmospheric. to determine things like rainforest density and deforestation and coral reef health. And yes, color of the ocean. So according to the 2023 paper in Nature titled Global Climate Change Trends Detected in Indicators of Ocean Ecology. A device known as modus stands for moderate resolution

imaging spectro-radiometer has captured 20 years of high-quality global ocean color data from the aqua satellite. And this was intended to run for six years. got an extra 14 years and counting out of it. So a lot of climate bang for your buck. But this 2023 study reported that the ocean on the whole is becoming greener. And the greener could be from increased detritus, which would increase back scattering at all wavelengths, or it could be from an increase in zooplankton and colored, dissolved material. And it warns that the observed changes will have ecological implications. And yes, we do need at least a two-part episode on color from the physics to the vibe shift of painting your house to spectroscopy.

So I'm hereby paging NASA's Hollybender, who flies above the earth capturing these changing wavelengths with spectroscopy. Friends call her the mistress of space rainbows, and she's a long time dear pal. So by friends, I do mean me. I call her that. These are all things that we can sense using basic principles related to something called the electromagnetic spectrum, you know, this cascading spectrum of all. ultraviolet, visible, infrared microwave, we can exploit those frequencies in the electromagnetic

spectrum to tell me something about the ocean or the planet. So that's the primary way. But we also have what we call in situ measurements. We have actual instruments in the water. And so we can measure things like temperature. We can measure things like sea spray and wind height and so forth. We even have things like buoys and submersible observing systems that sort of temporarily plunge themselves beneath the water and take measurements before they come back up.

They're kind of like soundings or reverse soundings in weather world or atmospheric sciences and meteorology. We send weather balloons up to get a profile of the atmospheric temperature. We can profile the ocean too. Of course, there are things like submersibles and sail drones. So the message there that I would leave those excellent, and thank you all for the questions, the message there is that we must have a robust observing sense. system and network, whether that's funded by our federal stakeholders and in partnership with our global partners around the planet. It's often not sort of in front of us.

You might say, well, why are we spending money on these sort of satellite systems that I know nothing about or that touch my lives directly? They absolutely do because the information coming from them inform us on El Niño. You know, I have friends who are roofers in the Bay Area. It's going to be a busy year. They could be very busy this year. I mean, and, you know, there are also these sort of whiplash effects, too, because you have an El Nino, which leads to in the western part of the U.S., for example, rainfall, you know, stormy conditions and mudslides and so forth. But then you get a lot of vegetation growth.

And then a year or two from now, when things dry out, all of that vegetation dries out, and that exacerbates or amplifies the fire season. And so these sort of jekyll and hide impacts of extreme rainfall and moisture followed in subsequent years by extreme dryness, that's something that I've paid quite a bit of my attention to in the western part of the U.S. because of this sort of dual personality. So a key message that I would sort of leave listeners with for your amazing podcast is that it's the extremes on all sides of the ledger that are the problem as our climate shifts. It's not just it's going to get drier or it's going to get wetter. It's both. Oh, dear. And even my good friend, Dr. Kim Cobb, who is an expert at Brown University and one of my closest colleagues, she's even looked at whether El Nino's are getting stronger or more frequent because of climate change. And there's likely a connection there too.

So to your point that you made in our conversation earlier, it's all connected. Yeah. Anything anyone can do right to advocate for? Who can we bug in general about where things are headed? So, you know, I have to as a scientist sort of keep a very sort of objective perspective, but I very much recommend that people remain attentive, be environmentally and climate attentive when it comes to policy, it comes to voting. I can't and won't tell you who to vote for, what side of the aisle to vote for. The El Nino doesn't care whether you're blue or red. It just does what it does because it's a part of a naturally varying system.

And to someone that may be listening that says, well, Dr. Shepard, you said earlier that El Nino is a naturally varying climate system. What's the problem? It absolutely is. But the problem with all of our atmospheric and oceanic processes right now is we have a varying climate system that has a human steroid on top of it. And so it's not an either-or proposition. It's and. Your grass grows naturally, too, but when you fertilize the lawn, it grows differently. And so we've got to move beyond the either-or narrative.

It is and, and we have a big problem. That's a great way to put it. Can you even watch, don't look up, or are you like... So how certain is this? There's 100% certainty of impact. Please, don't say 100%. We just call it a potentially significant event. But it isn't potentially going to happen.

99.78% to be exact. Oh, great. Okay, so it's not 100%. I'm gonna call it 70%. And let's just, let's move on. But it's not even close to 70%. Let's just use like 60% as a working number. I was actually an advisor. I helped with some aspects of sort of the science behind

don't look up on the back end. One of the things that I appreciated about that movie and shout out to the votes that were involved and engaged me, there's an entire community after the movie. So if you go online, there is a website and where we're providing information on the sort of climate science that was associated sort of subtly and in some cases directly with the messaging in that movie. And that's important. And that's why I find your show so important too, because, you know, we have these episodic things like a hit movie or an amazing

episode of something that we hear, but we've got to keep it going. And we've got to keep the message in front of people. and not just keep the message in front of them, but provide mechanisms by which they can engage. Now, I think people know that they can do things like, you know, perhaps eat less meat or drive an electric vehicle or make certain choices. But at the end of the day, the transformational choices that will reverse climate change or solve this crisis are going to come at the highest levels in terms of policy change around carbon emissions, adaptive policy, equalization or mitigation of income. gaps that make some people more vulnerable to the impacts of El Nino or a hurricane than others. So those are policy decisions that are going to come at a higher level. And so that's why, again, I encourage people that one of the best things they can do is just be engaged and attentive to

whomever is running for office or whoever is in certain positions to make sure that they understand that weather and climate touch every aspect of the system, whether it's national security, energy, water, the economy, or health. Let's vote. Thank you so much for elucidating this. This couldn't matter more, and I'm lucky to be able to get to sit down and ask you these questions directly. Well, it's so awesome to have you on my home turf here at the University of Georgia for our

inaugural 1801 lecture. I'm excited. That's later this afternoon. Yes. Yay. Thank you so much, Doc. Yes. So ask informed people some stormy questions.

because it's all graphs and nonsense otherwise. So once you sit down and understand, you go, oh, and then you can tell other people. So thank you again so much, Dr. Marshall Shepard, for being not once, but twice, and for having me at your lecture series in Athens. You can find links to his research and his podcast and social handles right in our show notes. And be sure to follow him and say hello for us. Also, I had a Claire in Atlanta who ran into me in my hotel lobby when I was wearing jorts and a rat's nest updo carrying an empty ice bucket. That was a fun surprise. Now, there are so many more links in the show notes and up at our website. We are at Ologies on Instagram and Blue Sky. I'm at Alley Ward on both. Smologies are shorter,

kid-friendly episodes in their own podcast feed, wherever you get podcasts, S-M-O-L-G-I-E-E-S. Ologies merch is available at Ologiesmerch.com. Thank you to patrons of the show at patreon. com.com slash Ologies for supporting Aaron Talbert, Adminziologies podcast, Facebook group. Human being, Avaline Malik, makes our professional transcripts. Dwyer does the website. In timely cycles is scheduling producer Noel Dilworth. The soul who wrangles my blob of a brain is managing director Susan Hale. And the dual oscillations editing ologies every week are Jake Chafy, but solo on the decks this week. Plus handling producer duties as lead editor and producer researcher and contributing writer for this episode, Mercedes Maitland

of Maitland Audio. Nick Thorburn wrote the theme music. And if you stick around to the end of the interview, I tell you a secret. And this week, it's that at the top of our recent rituals and Celebrations bonus episode, we accidentally left in some takes of an opening in the very beginning, like a sponge in an appendectomy patient. We sewed it up and we published it. And then we said, oops, some of you listened fast enough where you heard it before we edited it out and re-uploaded it. And you were like, why is there an under track where Allie is chattering about pumpkins to herself? And that's a valid question. So the thing is, it's rare, because usually I only do one take and I move on.

But what happened was I had originally opened with, it's the shampoo that smells like fresh manure, but it sounded like fresh veneer. Or maybe I'm just, I'm watching too many home renovation reels. But I decided it was too confusing. So last minute I recorded those and an editing glitch kept the extra takes in. So if you heard it, that's what happened.

If you missed it and you're having FOMO about it, let's listen to the fuck up. We edited it out in hopes that you wouldn't notice, but thousands upon thousands of you did notice. Oh, hey, it's that little tiny pumpkin on your co-worker's desk that stays good for months at a time. No one knows why. Allie Ward. Oh, hey, it's that little tiny pumpkin on the co-workers desk, Allie Ward. Oh, hey, it's that little tiny pumpkin on your co-workers' desk that doesn't rot for months, Alley Ward.

Oh, hey, it's one of those little tiny pumpkin. that you can buy to put on your desk, Allie Ward. Oh, hey, it's one of those impossibly tiny pumpkins that you can buy in the produce section, so you can put it on your desk, Allie Ward. Maybe that last one? Oh, I don't know. So that's what the fuss is about, and for those of you who wrote to me asking to keep it in, I'm sorry we did snip it out.

We had just uploaded it, we sniffed it out, we put it back up. But I hope you enjoy the behind-the-scenes saga. I was also so tired. I had slept one hour, I think, from, going to New York to, I think West Virginia. Anyway, I was tired. Things were blurry in my brain. That's how that works. So go get yourself a tiny pumpkin. Anyway, get it. Put it on your desk. You'll make everyone in the office happy. And also ask smart people, not smart questions. That's what I do for a job. Okay, bye.

A storm is coming.