How a Super El Niño could compound Bangladesh’s climate crisis

Highlights:

• Bangladesh faces heightened risks as a strengthening El Niño adds pressure to existing climate stresses
• The 2026–27 El Niño has over 90% chance of becoming very strong
• El Niño could intensify heat, irregular rainfall, salinity, disease and food-price pressures
• Experts warn Bangladesh could face multiple interconnected shocks arriving simultaneously

"The land used to give. Now it takes."

Amal Kumar was speaking about how salinity has slowly entered his land in Satkhira. After 40 years of farming, the soil he knows so well is turning against him. He invested Tk1.2 lakh to plant Boro rice this season, but a quarter of the transplants have already withered into brown, lifeless stalks. He is now facing a ruined harvest that won't even cover half his bank loan for seeds and fertiliser. 

Kajoli Begum, also from Satkhira, had her own struggle with climate change to recount, "Every year we rebuild, and every year the river returns. We don't know how long we can keep starting over."

Her life has been reduced to a relentless cycle of loss and temporary survival. After repeated floods washed away her home, she was forced to move to a fragile earthen embankment. The sheer exhaustion of living on the frontlines of climate change is woven into her daily reality.

Amal Kumar and Kajoli Begum have never met. One is losing his land to salt; the other has lost her home to water. One measures his ruin in an unpayable bank loan, the other in the number of times she has started over. 

What they share is a horizon that no longer holds — a sky and a river that have stopped behaving the way a lifetime has taught them to expect. 

Worse still, the odds stacked against both are about to be reshuffled by something neither can see —  El Niño, a patch of unusually warm water in the equatorial Pacific, thousands of kilometres away.

El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern characterised by the unusual warming of surface waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Part of a larger cycle known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), it occurs every two to seven years and typically lasts between nine and 12 months. 

The 2026–27 El Niño is strengthening rapidly. The US Climate Prediction Center puts the chance of a very strong event above 90%, with a 75% chance of one stronger than any recorded since 1950. WMO says it is almost certain to persist through February 2027.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Bill Patzert used the nickname 'Godzilla' to describe this year's unusually large and powerful El Niño. A normal El Niño raises sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific by about 0.5°C. A 'Godzilla' or super El Niño surges 2°C or more above the long-term average.

Bangladesh sits beside the Bay of Bengal, the mother of this riverine land, while being connected to a water system that does not recognise national borders. What happens in one part of this system can travel far beyond. And for a country so deeply shaped by water, changes in these systems can have consequences far from where they start.

But El Niño will not arrive in Bangladesh as a single, cinematic Godzilla. It will arrive as more of what Amal and Kajoli already endure — the same losses, magnified, and landing before the last ones have healed. 

It will arrive as the heightened intensity of hotter days, irregular rain, heavier electricity demand, stressed crops, volatile food prices, disease, salinity, and pressured fisheries. Each shock reduces the ability to absorb the next. 

Bangladesh produces roughly 0.3% of current global carbon dioxide emissions and about 0.11% cumulatively since 1751. Yet when the bill arrives, it is increasingly asked to borrow to pay it. Keep that contradiction in mind. It returns later, with interest.

A warm current with a long shadow

El Niño begins when the trade winds that normally push warm surface water westwards across the tropical Pacific weaken. Warm water shifts east; ocean heat escapes into the atmosphere; rain belts and pressure patterns move. 

Through these "teleconnections", a few degrees of unusual warmth off South America can influence drought in Indonesia, rainfall in Peru, African harvests and the South Asian monsoon.

El Niño does not control Bangladesh's weather directly. The Indian Ocean Dipole, Bay of Bengal, Himalayan snow, river flows and land use also matter. Forecasts change probabilities, not every district. But the past 11 years were the warmest 11 on record; El Niño's lagged heat may make the 2027 pre-monsoon the sharper test.

Infographic: TBS

Md Rashed Chowdhury, an eminent climate scientist and adjunct faculty member at Arizona State University's School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, said the scientific distinction between El Niño and long-term warming remains important — even if a Bangladeshi household experiences them as one assault.

"El Niño is a temporary climate pattern that can make an already warming situation hotter or more unpredictable, while long-term warming is continuously raising the baseline. Separating the two helps us understand what is temporary and what is becoming the new normal," he added.

But in terms of planning, he believes, we have to prepare for both. 

"A strong El Niño may pass, but the underlying warming will remain. We could face more heat stress, water shortages, pressure on agriculture and fisheries, biodiversity loss and greater risks to vulnerable communities. The danger is that these impacts can reinforce each other."

University of Michigan paleoclimatologist Julia Cole, who reconstructs El Niño's history from Galápagos coral, found that recent El Niño events have intensified beyond the range of natural variability recorded over the past thousand years. The irony is that the very corals preserving this history are themselves threatened by the exceptional ocean heat they help us understand. 

"The warming atmosphere is already increasing variability in drought and flood because warmer air holds more moisture. And if El Niño variability continues to strengthen, that's likely to lead to increased climate impacts in places where El Niño impacts are known," she said. 

'A multi-front shock'

Bangladesh has earned recognition for cyclone preparedness. However, El Niño increases the probability of compound shocks.

Rashed said Bangladesh has built a strong foundation, but that foundation was designed largely around individual hazards.

"Imagine a situation where extreme heat, drought, disease and pressure on fisheries all occur together. The impact would be much greater because these problems are interconnected. A drought can affect crops and water supplies, heat can create health problems, and changes in water conditions can affect fish and the people who depend on fisheries for income."

He added, "People could lose income just when food, water and healthcare costs are going up. Preparedness cannot mean preparing for one disaster at a time.

"We need better coordination between agriculture, water, health, fisheries and disaster management, as well as emergency funds that can be released quickly. The question is not whether we can respond to one crisis. We have shown that we can. It is whether we can respond when several arrive together."

Mostafa Kamal Palash, a PhD researcher at the University of Saskatchewan's School of Environment and Sustainability and founder and lead meteorologist of Abohawa.com and Abohawabid, approaches the threat from the global circulation carrying heat and moisture around the planet.

"This year's El Niño is expected to release a record-breaking amount of heat from the Pacific into the atmosphere. That heat is redistributed globally, while excess warmth increases evaporation from oceans, rivers and lakes. Because warmer air can hold and transport more moisture, some regions may experience extreme rainfall and flash flooding during and even after El Niño, while others experience drought and wildfire." 

He said, "Warmer conditions combined with flooding can favour vector-borne diseases such as malaria, chikungunya and dengue; disrupted water and sanitation can increase cholera risk. A 'Godzilla El Niño' is therefore not a single hazard. It can become a multi-front shock involving heat, drought, flood, disease, fisheries, agriculture and food security simultaneously."

The cost of sweats 

The April 2024 heatwave lasted 26 days. The 2025 Lancet Countdown estimated heat exposure cost Bangladesh 29 billion potential labour hours in 2024 — 92% above the 1990–99 average, with agriculture accounting for 64%. It valued potential income loss near $24 billion; a narrower World Bank methodology estimated up to $1.78 billion. 

The divergence shows how much remains difficult to count when it comes to Bangladesh, where informal economy dominates the economy.  

Mahtab Uddin, assistant professor of economics at the University of Dhaka and research director at South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM), believes Bangladesh's exposure lies in this caveat: where around 85% of employment is informal, leaving labourers without paid leave or job security.

"Studies show that a 1°C increase in temperature can reduce a person's productivity by around 2–4%. People cannot maintain the same physical effort or work for as long. At the same time, food supply can fall. If food prices rise while the marginal product of labour falls, real wages take a significant hit."

For a poor household, a Tk100 decline can mean consuming less food, marrying off a daughter earlier, or withdrawing a child from school and sending them to work. Moreover, the growing electricity crisis is exacerbating the situation. 

The Kaptai gauge and an erratic grid

The effect of El Niño on the energy sector can come from two directions: higher electricity demand and greater pressure on generation and fuel imports.

As Shafiqul Alam, Lead Analyst, Energy, at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), pointed out, rising temperatures drive up cooling demand and, in turn, electricity use. The same pressure extends to offices, garment factories and other industries as their cooling loads increase.

"We need better coordination between agriculture, water, health, fisheries and disaster management, as well as emergency funds that can be released quickly. The question is not whether we can respond to one crisis. We have shown that we can. It is whether we can respond when several arrive together."

Md Rashed Chowdhury, Climate scientist

On the generation side, hydropower is particularly exposed to changes in rainfall and prolonged dry conditions. The most direct exposure for Bangladesh is Kaptai, the country's only hydropower plant, whose generation depends on the water level of its reservoir and the wider hydrological cycle. In June 2026, its output fell from around 240MW to just 58MW as the lake level declined.

Kaptai's contribution is small in terms of national generation, less than 1%, but its loss cannot be measured by megawatts alone. As Alam noted, "Despite that contribution, we also need to remember that Kaptai provides very cheap electricity, so there will certainly be some impact."

The larger concern, however, lies beyond Bangladesh's own reservoir. Hydropower generation across seven Asian markets, including Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Malaysia, fell by around 13 average gigawatts in June 2026 compared with the previous year, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights. 

For Bangladesh, that exposure comes through the fuel markets. If several major power systems turn to coal and gas at the same time to compensate for lost hydropower, demand for those fuels could rise, adding pressure to the markets on which Bangladesh also depends.

"If an El Niño year increases the electricity Bangladesh needs while reducing cheap hydropower across Asia, the replacement energy can become more expensive and more carbon-intensive," Alam said.

Therefore, El Niño can squeeze energy from both ends: raising demand while making supply costlier.

When freshwater loses ground

A weaker monsoon under El Niño can reduce discharge from the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin, disturbing the delicate balance between freshwater and saltwater in Bangladesh's rivers and coastal waters, as Rajib K Saha, Assistant Director at the Geological Survey of Bangladesh, said.

How does El Niño disturb that balance? Rajib explained the process step by step. Strong monsoon currents normally act as a barrier, driving saltwater back towards the sea while also diluting the saline water that enters estuaries and tidal channels during high tides.

When river discharge decreases that barrier weakens. Tidal forces can then push heavier saltwater further up the river channels and into the floodplain. With less freshwater flowing through the system, the saltwater also remains for longer. During the dry season, repeated tidal cycles can carry it further inland, increasing salinity in surface water, groundwater and soil across a wider part of the delta.

But Bangladesh's exposure to salinity is not shaped by El Niño alone. Decades of changes to the country's river and coastal systems have already reduced its capacity to flush out saltwater. 

"The reduced flow upstream as a result of the Farakka Barrage since 1975, together with the polders and embankments which prevent natural tidal flushing and cause saline water to be trapped, probably results in more damage than any one deficit caused by a monsoon driven by El Niño," Rajib Saha noted.

That distinction is important: El Niño can add another layer of pressure to a salinity problem that Bangladesh has been dealing with for decades.

Rajib Saha named Satkhira, Khulna and Bagerhat as the most exposed districts, a vulnerability tied directly to declining dry-season flows in the Gorai-Madhumati and Kopotakkho river systems, which weaken the natural freshwater barrier against tidal saltwater. These districts are already the country's most salinity-affected, according to national surveys by the Soil Resources Development Institute, with roughly 64% of cultivable land in Satkhira and close to 69% in Khulna already affected. 

He also raised concerns over riverbank erosion, groundwater depletion and salt contamination, particularly in the southwest. He flagged sediment starvation inside coastal polders as a less visible problem, leaving sinking land increasingly exposed to weak-monsoon, low-flushing years. 

When a rain deficit becomes a rice bill

During the 2023 El Niño, BMD data showed rainfall below the long-term average by 65% in April, 42% in May, 18% in June and nearly 43% in July. It shows how missing rain moves from cloud to household budget.

Aman rice depends on monsoon timing. Delayed rain disrupts transplanting; heat stresses seedlings; a late burst can flood mature crops. Pumping groundwater converts a meteorological deficit into fuel demand and debt. In December 2025, the government declared 25 northwestern upazilas water-stressed for 10 years.

During the 2023 El Niño, rainfall was below the long-term average by 65% in April, 42% in May, 18% in June and nearly 43% in July. Photo: TBS

Deep-tube-well irrigation turned the drought-prone Barind into a rice bowl by borrowing underground water. Now the old dry country is returning beneath the green—with an invoice attached.

Bangladesh entered El Niño bruised by the opposite extreme. Pre-monsoon rain submerged over 46,000 hectares of haor Boro, threatening a 200,000-tonne shortfall. FAO estimated that 10 lakh agricultural households would need emergency assistance between June and November 2026.

Jyoti Rahman, an economist and macro-fiscal expert with the IMF and Chairman of the Panam Institute, said the main transmission channel may be global commodity prices already strained by geopolitical shocks.

"A severe El Niño could disrupt agricultural production and commodity markets globally, placing additional pressure on import-dependent economies such as Bangladesh. This could feed into domestic food inflation, agricultural input costs and household purchasing power. Bangladesh cannot control global weather or commodity prices, but it can reduce the extent to which those shocks are amplified by weaknesses in its supply chains and policy responses."

Palash warned that Bangladesh must look beyond its own rainfall map. Drought in major producing countries can enter Bangladesh through the port, the exchange rate and the kitchen market.

"Heat and drought in Australia, Canada and the United States could reduce wheat production and increase prices in 2027 and 2028. Lower palm and soybean oil production could also raise global prices. Staple foods such as rice, wheat, lentils and soybeans may rise more sharply than other crops, hitting people already living with food insecurity and malnutrition hardest."

Bangladesh must therefore, he says, prepare for both direct weather impacts and disruption to global food markets — by diversifying import sources, maintaining adequate reserves and strengthening supply-chain management."

The disease problem

Temperature affects mosquito development and viral transmission. Erratic rain creates pools; drought encourages household water storage. Bangladesh's worst dengue outbreak brought 321,179 hospitalisations and 1,705 deaths in 2023. By early September 2026, more than 42,000 patients had been hospitalised and over 110 had died in another accelerating outbreak. 

Hilsa production suffers 

Bangladesh's marine catch has declined for several years. Provisional figures put the FY2025–26 catch near 515,000 tonnes, against 706,000 tonnes in FY2021–22. Hilsa is shifting in timing and location as temperature, salinity, river flow, siltation, pollution and fishing pressure interact.

El Niño can alter water temperature, rain and river discharge, pushing fish deeper. But a stock may adapt by moving offshore while a small-boat fisher experiences disappearance.

Record ocean warmth also threatens coral reefs globally. Palash said this could undermine reef-associated fisheries and coastal livelihoods far beyond Bangladesh. The wider global shock matters because seafood markets, migration and ecological decline do not respect borders.

Zakir Hossain Khan, founder of Change Initiative, said hilsa output had already fallen about 12.5% over two years before the strongest phase of this El Niño. "Building back the same vulnerability is not adaptation," he said. Rivers, aquifers, wetlands, fertile soil and coastal ecosystems must be treated as life-support systems rather than expendable economic inputs.

And the effect can be seen already. India has exported around 500 tonnes of hilsa to Bangladesh over the past two months, marking the first reversal of the traditional trade flow of the sought-after fish between the two countries, with another 150-200 tonnes of hilsa expected to be exported to Bangladesh in the coming weeks. What an irony! 

The cost to the households 

Mahtab Uddin said, "Scarcity is brutal. Unpredictability can be worse. Households respond to sudden crises by consuming less protein, delaying treatment, selling cattle early, and taking on debt. Around 70% of working women are in informal or unpaid labour, and water scarcity and illness expand that work while male migration leaves women managing farms with less cash." 

Palash sees displacement as one of the longest shadows of the event—not because one El Niño creates a climate refugee by itself, but because it accelerates pressures already forcing people from eroding riverbanks and exposed coasts.

"People who lose homes and livelihoods because of sea-level rise, storm surges, coastal flooding and riverbank erosion often migrate towards Dhaka and Chattogram. Without adequate resources or affordable housing, many settle in dense informal settlements where safe water, sanitation, healthcare and education are limited. Extreme weather is already increasing food and water insecurity around the world. A record El Niño, arriving on top of global warming and unrepaired losses, is likely to add to displacement in the coming years."

The country pays twice

Bangladesh pays once for damage and again for the money required to survive it. The Climate Debt Risk Index 2025 gave it a high-risk score of 65.37, estimating climate debt at $79.6 per person and a loan-to-grant ratio of 2.7 — nearly four times the least-developed-country average.

As shocks accumulate, spending moves from planned development to emergency imports and repair. In June 2026, the World Bank approved $1.1 billion in emergency financing for rising food, fertiliser and fuel costs. Necessary relief becomes another balance-sheet entry.

The World Bank estimates Bangladesh could lose one-third of agricultural GDP by 2050 and see 13.3 million internal climate migrants; a severe flood could cut GDP by 9%. These are not El Niño forecasts, but the larger slope down which compound shocks can push the country.

Khan calls the danger a "growing recovery deficit"as the next shock arrives before the previous damage is repaired.

"Bangladesh is no longer facing isolated climate-induced disasters; we are facing overlapping shocks that can simultaneously hit food, water, health, ecosystems and the economy. The real danger is repeated shocks arriving faster than people, nature and public finances can recover."

"Bangladesh needs one compound-risk command system, not fragmented ministry-by-ministry responses. We are still in the anticipatory window. If we wait until the impact becomes visible, we have already lost the cheapest opportunity to protect people, nature and the economy."

He argues that Bangladesh must move the global conversation from climate charity to climate responsibility. Countries that contributed least should not be pushed deeper into debt to repair damage generated elsewhere. Yet injustice abroad cannot become an alibi for failure at home. Global emitters loaded the climate system; Bangladesh still decides whether aquifers are overdrawn, canals occupied, hospitals prepared and warnings translated into action.

The real forecast is a governance test

Rashed Chowdhury argues that environmental protection must become adaptation. 

"Looking ahead, the situation could become more difficult if temperatures continue to rise. We could face more heat stress, water shortages, pressure on agriculture and fisheries, biodiversity loss, and greater risks to vulnerable communities. The danger is that these impacts can reinforce each other," he said. 

"Protecting our environment therefore has to be part of adaptation. We need to restore wetlands and rivers, protect forests and coastal ecosystems, reduce pollution, improve water management, promote climate-resilient agriculture, and protect natural habitats. At the same time, we need to reduce emissions wherever possible." 

Palash frames the same requirement as a challenge to the development model itself. Policies built only around growth will repeatedly sacrifice the systems that make growth possible. "Our future development policies should balance environment, equity and economy," he said, with the Sustainable Development Goals incorporated into planning rather than displayed as decoration.

"Bangladesh has 17 active anticipatory-action frameworks, yet drought is not covered. The 2024 heat protocol reached only about 123,700 people. The danger is therefore not simply heat plus drought plus disease plus fisheries loss. The real risk is that one shock amplifies another, multiplies the cost, water scarcity affects crops and health, heat raises electricity demand, fisheries suffer, and food imports rise," said Zakir Hossain Khan. 

He added, "The critical point is this: we are still in the anticipatory window. If we wait until the impact becomes visible, we have already lost the cheapest opportunity to protect people, nature and the economy. Bangladesh needs one compound-risk command system, not fragmented ministry-by-ministry responses. The key point is that we are still in the anticipatory window. The immediate priorities should be water and groundwater conservation, heat-health protection, crop and food-security planning, disease surveillance, fisheries and river monitoring, and pre-arranged anticipatory finance."