Changing Climate, Changing Migration
Sep 25, 2026 · 24 min · 9 segments
A forecasted historic El Niño, labeled “Super Godzilla,” is expected to peak in late 2026 and turn 2027 into the hottest year ever recorded on the planet. Expected to be the largest El Niño in at…
Alexander KjærumGuest
Julian HattemHost
So at a very basic level, what sort of weather effects does El Nino have in places around the world? And why might those repercussions be particularly impactful this year?
Yeah, so, I mean, El Niño is a natural warming of the Pacific Ocean, and it occurs sort of every three, four, five years.
But of course, as you mentioned, this year scientists are saying that it's likely to break sort of all historical records.
I'll spare you the mechanisms, but it basically sort of scrambles the global weather system.
So it's not like because it's happening in the Pacific that the impacts are confined to the Pacific Oceans and the countries in that region.
So as an example, in Southeast Asia, places like Afghanistan, but also Central America and Southern Africa, we're likely looking into more like extreme heat, drought conditions, and so on.
While in, for example, the Horn of Africa, what we're expecting is very severe rainfall that will cause potential flooding in many of the countries.
I would say what is sort of then the commonality is, of course, that where those impacts will be most felt are in the countries that are poor and fragile and therefore also least able to cope with these extreme weather conditions.
And so I guess what does that mean then for human mobility and displacement? What kind of impacts are we talking about? The Danish Refugee Council, where you work, recently published a report focusing on East Africa, predicting that in a worst case scenario, as many as 3 million people could be forced to flee their homes because of El Nino related extreme rains and flooding in that region.
But how did you arrive at that number? And what might that displacement look like?
So, I mean, I think, you know, one of the clear visible impacts of these extreme weather and these type of events is, of course, cost displacement.
And so when we saw the early seasonal forecast and these sort of initial predictions of a superlino, we, of course, took that.
and said, okay, how is that going to potentially impact in the countries where we work? I mean, we work with displacement affected communities in many countries around the world.
We focused initially on the Horn of Africa, in particular on Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya, and Somalia to see, you know, basically analyzing how have historical El Niño linked with displacement in these contexts.
And then given the current outlook of El Niño for this season, what are the displacement scenarios we're looking into.
As you mentioned, what we're seeing is somewhere between, in a very mild scenario, around 800,000 people becoming displaced across those four countries alone.
So at a very basic level, what sort of weather effects does El Nino have in places around the world? And why might those repercussions be particularly impactful this year?
Yeah, so, I mean, El Niño is a natural warming of the Pacific Ocean, and it occurs sort of every three, four, five years.
But of course, as you mentioned, this year scientists are saying that it's likely to break sort of all historical records.
I'll spare you the mechanisms, but it basically sort of scrambles the global weather system.
So it's not like because it's happening in the Pacific that the impacts are confined to the Pacific Oceans and the countries in that region.
So as an example, in Southeast Asia, places like Afghanistan, but also Central America and Southern Africa, we're likely looking into more like extreme heat, drought conditions, and so on.
While in, for example, the Horn of Africa, what we're expecting is very severe rainfall that will cause potential flooding in many of the countries.
I would say what is sort of then the commonality is, of course, that where those impacts will be most felt are in the countries that are poor and fragile and therefore also least able to cope with these extreme weather conditions.
And so I guess what does that mean then for human mobility and displacement? What kind of impacts are we talking about? The Danish Refugee Council, where you work, recently published a report focusing on East Africa, predicting that in a worst case scenario, as many as 3 million people could be forced to flee their homes because of El Nino related extreme rains and flooding in that region.
But how did you arrive at that number? And what might that displacement look like?
So, I mean, I think, you know, one of the clear visible impacts of these extreme weather and these type of events is, of course, cost displacement.
And so when we saw the early seasonal forecast and these sort of initial predictions of a superlino, we, of course, took that.
and said, okay, how is that going to potentially impact in the countries where we work? I mean, we work with displacement affected communities in many countries around the world.
We focused initially on the Horn of Africa, in particular on Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya, and Somalia to see, you know, basically analyzing how have historical El Niño linked with displacement in these contexts.
And then given the current outlook of El Niño for this season, what are the displacement scenarios we're looking into.
As you mentioned, what we're seeing is somewhere between, in a very mild scenario, around 800,000 people becoming displaced across those four countries alone.
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