The 1877–1878 El Niño episode: associated impacts in South America

Abstract

Artículo de publicación ISIAt times when attention on climate issues is strongly focused on the assessment of potential impacts of future climate change due to the intensification of the planetary greenhouse effect, it is perhaps pertinent to look back and explore the consequences of past climate variability. In this article we examine a large disruption in global climate that occurred during 1877–1878, when human influence was negligible. The mechanisms explaining this global disturbance are not well established, but there is considerable evidence that the major El Niño episode that started by the end of 1876 and peaked during the 1877–1878 boreal winter contributed significantly to it. The associated regional climate anomalies were extremely destructive, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, where starvation due to intense droughts in Asia, South-East Asia and Africa took the lives of more than 20 million people. In South America regional precipitation anomalies were typical of El Niño events, with rainfall deficit and droughts in the northern portion of the continent as well as in northeast Brazil and the highlands of the central Andes (Altiplano). In contrast, anomalously intense rainfall and flooding episodes were reported for the coastal areas of southern Ecuador and Northern Perú, as well as along the extratropicalWest coast of the continent (central Chile, 30◦ S–40◦ S), and in the Paraná basin in the southeast region. By far the most devastating impacts in terms of suffering and loss of life occurred in the semiarid region of northeast Brazil where several hundreds of thousands of people died from starvation and diseases during the drought that started in 1877.This research was sponsored in Chile by Conicyt research grants Fondecyt N◦ 1000445 and N◦ 1040326, and ACT-19

Assessing Homogeneity and Climate Variability of Temperature and Precipitation Series in the Capitals of North-Eastern Brazil

“…Marengo et al (2013) and Marengo and Bernasconi (2015) describe the NEB region rainfall to exhibit a marked inter-annual variability with a slight decrease since the 1970's. Part of these rainfall changes have been attributed to SSTvariations in the tropical Pacific manifested as extremes of ENSO and to the meridional SST gradient in the tropical Atlantic (e.g., Nobre et al, 2006;Aceituno et al, 2009;Marengo et al, 2013). The differences in the rainfall trends over NEB to our results are most probably connected to our station collective focusing on the coastal region and excluding the semiarid and arid NEB interior.…”

Hydroclimate variability in the low-elevation Atacama Desert over the last 2500 yr

“…In turn, this would imply that these older hydroclimate anomalies occurred during increased El Niño activity, an explanation that is unsupported by what we know regarding how the modern climate system works. In contrast to the lithic concentration record, however, rainfall histories from other regions sensitive to positive ENSO events (El Niño; Aceituno et al, 2009) such as central Chile (Laguna Aculeo, Fig. 5c; Jenny et al, 2002) point to significantly drier conditions during both intervals.…”

“…Enhanced SST gradients during la Niña years lead to increased influx of humidity through the strengthening and southward displacement of the Bolivian High and a subdued zonal upper level westerly circulation (Garreaud et al, 2003;Vuille and Keimig, 2004). Opposite atmospheric conditions during El Niño years lead to extended summer drought throughout the Altiplano (Aceituno et al, 2009).…”

The very strong coastal El Niño in 1925 in the far-eastern Pacific

“…62 It is interesting that this event was compared to the "strong +" 1871 and "very strong" 1891, but the "very strong" 1877-1878 El Niño (Quinn et al 1987) was not mentioned. Although newspapers mentioned flooding in Casma in February 1878 (Aceituno et al 2009), perhaps they were not as intense as in the other El Niño years mentioned. The heavy rain and floods returned in March 26, with very high levels in the Tabón and Sechín rivers.…”