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super el niño
Food Prices Set for Summer Surge as Trump and GOP Stare Down Inflation ‘Abyss’
"Food is going to become less affordable, and consumers should be prepared for it," said one expert.
May 27, 2026
US shoppers have been struggling with the price of groceries for years now, and prices are only set to climb higher in the coming months.
As reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday, a combination of President Donald Trump's tariffs, his illegal war with Iran, and a potential "super El Niño" weather pattern is projected to lower food supply while increasing food production costs, all of which will mean higher prices at US grocery stores.
According to Bloomberg, weather forecasters are now projecting that an unusually strong El Niño will form in August "that will persist into 2027 and push global average temperatures higher," potentially causing droughts in nations that grow staple crops such as rice, coffee, and cocoa.
And even without an El Niño, noted Bloomberg, farmers in the US have already endured the warmest-ever start to a planting season, which "prompted some domestic crops to begin blossoming weeks ahead of schedule instead of remaining dormant throughout the winter, leaving them exposed to subsequent frosts."
Ricky Volpe, agribusiness professor at California Polytechnic State University, told Bloomberg that 2026 would be a "challenging year" for agriculture, warning that "food is going to become less affordable, and consumers should be prepared for it."
Unusually warm weather isn't the only factor pushing up food prices. In a report published earlier this month, The New York Times found that Trump's tariffs on foreign steel have been pushing up prices of canned foods.
According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the price of canned fruit and vegetables in March posted 5.7% increase from the year before, driven in large part by a tariff-induced rise in tin plate prices.
"Over 80% of the tin plate used in the United States last year was imported, according to Harbor Intelligence, a metals markets analysis firm," noted the Times. "Tin plate is produced in much lower volumes than the steel used to make cars and buildings, making it a less attractive business for large steel companies."
While Trump has tried to brush off the rise in grocery and fuel prices in recent weeks—going so far as to say "I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation"—his Republican Party is bracing for potential political consequences.
CNBC reported on Wednesday that the GOP is staring down an inflation "abyss" and fears that Democrats are well poised to at least retake the US House of Representatives.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who is retiring at the end of this term, told CNBC that his fellow Republicans have been unwilling to serve as a check on what he described as Trump's self-destructive tariffs that had hit Americans' pocketbooks.
"I think tariffs are bad policy," said Bacon. "Milton Friedman, Adam Smith, they’re the bibles of conservatism, and we have violated those... We should not have rolled over on that here in Congress."
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Hegseth Calls Iran War 'Gift to the World' Despite Economic Calamity, Food Shortages
Hegseth once again chided US allies for not getting involved in the war, which has created severe shortage of jet fuel and forced European airlines to enact mass flight cancelations.
Apr 24, 2026
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday once again suggested the international community should show gratitude for President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran, which has led to a global oil supply shock and created the potential for food shortages in the coming months.
Speaking with reporters at the Pentagon, Hegseth defended the president's decision to launch a war of choice with Iran that so far has cost US taxpayers an estimated $60 billion.
"It's a bold and dangerous mission," said Hegseth. "A gift to the world. Historic. Courtesy of a bold and historic president."
Hegseth: "It's a bold and dangerous mission. A gift to the world. Historic. Courtesy of a bold and historic president." pic.twitter.com/AR0zs6Djd4
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 24, 2026
Hegseth also chided US allies for not getting involved in the war, which Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched in late February without any consultation or coordination with Europe.
"America and the free world deserve allies who are capable, who are loyal, and who understand being an ally is not a one-way street," he said. "We are not counting on Europe, but they need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe, and get in a boat. This is much more their fight than ours."
Hegseth: "We are not counting on Europe, but they need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe and get in a boat. This is much more their fight than ours." pic.twitter.com/OUnt3n9TfV
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 24, 2026
In reality, there is little reason for the world to feel gratitude to the US and Israel for the war.
As reported by Barron's on Friday, the war has created a global shortage of jet fuel that has led to airlines canceling flights, with Europe being particularly hard hit.
German airline Lufthansa, for instance, has announced it's cutting 20,000 flights through October, and even US airlines such as Delta have been announcing cuts to save money thanks to the increase in jet fuel prices.
South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday that Asian nations are bracing for food shortages, as the Iran War has led to a shortage of fertilizer for crops during the planting season throughout much of the world.
In addition to citing the effects of the Iran War on global food supplies, the South China Morning Post pointed to scientists' warnings of a "super El Niño" that could lead to lower than average rainfall.
“It is very concerning because this year is supposed to be a super El Niño, and you are getting into the planting season,” Gnanasekar Thiagarajan, founder of India-based financial research and advisory firm Commtrendz Research, told South China Morning Post. "This is going to be widespread across South and Southeast Asia. There will be dryness everywhere."
Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), warned on Tuesday that there is a real risk of a global food crisis if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to shipments of fertilizer.
“The planting season has already started, and in most countries in Africa it will end in May," the UN official explained. "So, if we don’t get some solution immediately, the crisis will be very significant and severe, particularly for the poorest countries and for the poorest citizens."
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Climate Crisis Likely to Intensify El Niño, Pushing Global Temperatures Past 1.5°C Threshold
"It's the first time in history that it's more likely than not that we will exceed 1.5°C," said a co-author of a new U.N. report.
May 17, 2023
Naturally-occurring El Niño events have resulted in hotter global temperatures for thousands of years, but a United Nations agency warned Tuesday that the warming trend that scientists expect to form in the coming months will be intensified by heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions—likely resulting in an average global temperature that's more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least a year.
"A warming El Niño is expected to develop in the coming months and this will combine with human-induced climate change to push global temperatures into uncharted territory," said Prof. Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), as the agency released its Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update ahead of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event.
A global average temperature that exceeds 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels would mean that the planet temporarily grows hotter than the limit specified by the Paris climate agreement.
The WMO report says there is a 66% chance that the annual average global temperature will exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year between 2023 and 2027.
"It's the first time in history that it's more likely than not that we will exceed 1.5°C," Adam Scaife of the U.K.'s Met Office, who worked on the report, told Reuters.
As Common Dreams reported Monday, climate scientists are currently observing trends in the Pacific Ocean that appear "very much like the 1997 and 2015 early stages of a Super El Niño," in which very high temperatures would be recorded near the equator.
El Niño events occur roughly every five years, and the one that appears to be forming now is likely to make at least one of the next five years the warmest on record. The El Niño event that occurred in 2016 contributed to 2016, 2019, and 2020 being the hottest years on record so far.
The WMO report said there is a 98% chance that the upcoming five-year period as a whole will be the warmest in recorded history. There is a 32% likelihood that the five-year mean temperature will exceed the 1.5°C threshold.
Although the breach of the 1.5°C limit is expected to be temporary, Taalas warned that this El Niño event could signal a new pattern.
"This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C level specified in the Paris Agreement which refers to long-term warming over many years. However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5°C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency,” said Taalas. "This will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management, and the environment. We need to be prepared."
Scientists and heat experts have begun calling on officials to prepare communities with cooling stations, access to air conditioning equipment, and other measures to cope with the hot weather El Niño is expected to bring.
Prior to 2015, the chance of the annual global average temperature crossing the 1.5°C threshold was "close to zero," according to the WMO. Between 2017 and 2021, scientists recorded a 10% chance.
"Global mean temperatures are predicted to continue increasing, moving us away further and further away from the climate we are used to," said Dr. Leon Hermanson, a Met Office scientist who led the report.
The report noted that warming in the Arctic is "disproportionately high," which has threatened the collapse of a crucial ocean current system and disrupted weather patterns in the northern hemisphere.
Climate writer Andy Rowell called the WMO's report both "heartbreakingly terrifying and predictable" as the fossil fuel industry and policymakers refuse to heed the warnings of scientists and energy experts, who say the continued extraction of oil and gas have no place on a pathway to avoiding the 1.5°C warming limit.
"This report must be a rallying cry to intensify global efforts to tackle the climate crisis," Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace U.K., told Reuters.
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As El Niño Looms, US Officials Advised to Prepare Communities for Extreme Heat
"This is the time to direct our energies and efforts toward preparedness and readiness, particularly to protect our most vulnerable citizens from the impact of extreme heat," said one expert.
May 15, 2023
With scientists pointing to a number of weather patterns this year that have already signified that the El Niño Southern Oscillation may amplify planetary heating in the coming months, one heat and public health expert said Monday that officials must take advantage of the time they have now to prepare their communities for potential extreme heat events in the United States and around the world.
"We will likely see a significant impact from El Niño in the 2023 heat season," said Ashley Ward, a senior policy associate at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. "While El Niño is still forming this year, we need to prepare for the 2024 heat season to likely be worse."
Ward said the last time scientists observed the kind of significant heat caused by El Niño that they're expecting to see this year was in 2016, which is tied with 2020 for the hottest year on record.
As climate researcher Leon Simons said last week regarding current ocean warming trends, scientists are currently observing heat patterns that look "very much like the 1997 and 2015 early stages of a Super El Niño," which is marked by very high temperatures in the Pacific Ocean near the equator.
"Based on the year-to-date and the current El Niño forecast," wrote Zeke Hausfather at Carbon Brief late last month, "2023 is very likely to end up between the warmest year on record and the sixth warmest, with a best estimate of fourth warmest."
Ward called on officials at the state and local level to take the next several weeks to "develop response plans for periods of extreme heat that address how to reach both urban and rural populations."
"This is the time to direct our energies and efforts toward preparedness and readiness, particularly to protect our most vulnerable citizens from the impact of extreme heat," said Ward.
Extreme heat has devastated parts of the world, including the U.S., in recent years.
Temperature records were broken in Vietnam and Laos last week, with the northern district of Tuong Duong recording a high of 111.6°F. Record-shattering heat in the Pacific Northwest was linked to hundreds of deaths in 2021, and more than 1,000 people died in Western Europe last summer of heat-related causes.
Ward said public health and safety authorities should begin organizing educational campaigns to "help individuals understand how they can mitigate heat" and to examine how they can help people procure fans and other cooling devices.
"Additional measures could include... providing shelter for the unhoused during periods of extreme heat," said Ward, "and reinforcing heat safety guidelines for occupational exposure and student-athletes."
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NASA Drops Major Bomb in 'March Toward Ever-Warmer Planet'
Wunderground meteorologists declare that 'we are now hurtling at a frightening pace toward the globally agreed maximum of 2.0°C warming'
Mar 14, 2016
NASA this weekend released new data which shows that February 2016 was not only the hottest in recorded history, but it soared past all previous records, prompting scientists to describe the announcement as "an ominous milestone in our march toward an ever-warmer planet."
The average global surface temperature for February was 1.35degC warmer than the global average for the month between 1951-1980--a margin that shattered the previous record of 1.14degC, which was set just one month earlier--and exceeded preliminary figures released earlier this month.
"NASA dropped a bombshell of a climate report," wrote meteorologists Bob Henson and Dr. Jeff Masters, founder of the Weather Underground. "February 2016 has soared past all rivals as the warmest seasonally adjusted month in more than a century of global record keeping."
February's new temperature record beat that set in January 2016 by a full 0.21degC, which Masters and Henson described as "an extraordinary margin."
"We are in a kind of climate emergency now."
--Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research
Scientists are normally wary of highlighting a single month's temperature spike, particularly in an El Nino cycle. However, this record bests even the one set during the Super El Nino of February 1998 by 0.47degC.
Stefan Rahmstorf, from Germany's Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research and a visiting professorial fellow at the University of New South Wales, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the new figures are "quite stunning ... it's completely unprecedented."
And given the increasing concentration of carbon in the global atmosphere, which is driving higher long-term temperature increases as well as other extreme weather events, the string of monthly records is a foreboding sign.
Henson and Masters explain:
The real significance of the February record is in its departure from the seasonal norms that people, plants, animals, and the Earth system are accustomed to dealing with at a given time of year. Drawing from NASA's graph of long-term temperature trends, if we add 0.2degC as a conservative estimate of the amount of human-produced warming that occurred between the late 1800s and 1951-1980, then the February result winds up at 1.55degC above average. If we use 0.4degC as a higher-end estimate, then February sits at 1.75degC above average. Either way, this result is a true shocker, and yet another reminder of the incessant long-term rise in global temperature resulting from human-produced greenhouse gases.
They conclude, "we are now hurtling at a frightening pace toward the globally agreed maximum of 2.0degC warming over pre-industrial levels."
And Rahmstorf also notes, "We are in a kind of climate emergency now."
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'The Warning Bells are Deafening': Super El Niño Threatening Global Hunger Crisis
Stark warning aimed at those likely to be ravaged by record weather system, as well as wealthy governments indebted to nations most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change
Dec 14, 2015
As many as 50 million people across the world face potential hunger, disease, and water shortages by early 2016 if countries do not act immediately, declared Oxfam International on Monday, addressing those nations predicted to be ravaged by this year's Super El Nino as well as wealthy governments indebted to those most vulnerable to climate change.
"The warning bells are deafening," said Meg Quartermaine, humanitarian manager with Oxfam Australia, which issued the warning on the same day that the powerful Typhoon Melor made landfall in the Philippines, forcing the evacuation of 725,000 people.
The Philippines is among the countries that the global anti-poverty group has previously identified as having a food supply already threatened by the impacts of climate change. The typhoons and other extreme weather events that are being predicted under, what could be "the most powerful El Nino on record" are expected to drive millions of people in the Pacific rim region, and across the globe, into even more dire straits.
Monday's report (pdf) said that Papua New Guinea will likely bear the brunt of this season's "super charged weather phenomenon," with the country's National Disaster Committee estimating that as many as 3 million people are at risk of starvation, "as crop failures force many people to cut back to eating just one meal a day."
While that nation--along with Vanuatu, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, and Tonga--are "experiencing worsening drought, central Pacific countries like Kiribati and Tuvalu will likely see intense rain causing flooding and higher sea levels," the report states.
What's more, the warning comes on top of a recent scientific study which found that heightened greenhouse gas emissions will likely exacerbate the naturally-occurring El Nino phenomenon and drive global temperatures to record highs.
The stark report comes just days after global leaders adopted the landmark Paris Agreement in an effort to stem the growing crisis of climate change. While the COP21 pact made strides in limiting countries' greenhouse gas emissions and capitulated to the demands of small island nations to limit warming to 1.5degC, it failed to hold the world's richest and most polluting nations accountable for their outsized role in driving the global emergency.
"This is a wake-up call for those on the way home from the UN climate conference," Quartermaine said of the Oxfam report. "Emissions targets must be rapidly strengthened if we are to ensure the goal of limiting warming to below 2degC or 1.5degC can be met. And more funding is required for vulnerable communities to adapt to increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather."
The group commends the Australian government for committing $9 million to support Papua New Guinea and other countries in the Pacific in order to prepare for and mitigate the effects of El Nino. However, Quartermaine adds that "it is clear that much more will be needed over coming months as the impacts of this potentially unprecedented El Nino event become greater."
"This is a crisis on a huge global scale," she adds.
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