Pacific Ocean like someone 'burning with fever' thanks to El Niño, experts warn as typhoons batter East Asia

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Typhoons have battered parts of East Asia as El Niño drives extreme weather events, with experts likening the Pacific Ocean to someone "burning with fever". Storms made worse by El Niño have battered vast swathes Taiwan, China , Japan and the Philippines, killing dozens and leaving destruction and delays in their path. Taiwan was effectively shut down as Typhoon Champi struck the island nation last month. Typhoon Champi was as powerful as a category five hurricane with winds reaching 193mph, sparking hundreds of flight cancellations in East Asia and cutting power to tens of thousands of homes, but fortunately it did not make landfall in Taiwan.

Experts claim the strength of the storm was turbocharged by El Niño - a climate phenomenon that warms sea water in the Pacific and can, in turn, spark major weather events around the globe. While El Niño weather events happen every few years, the UK Met Office warned this year's was the "strongest in living memory", and can last until either February or March next year. The Pacific Ocean was compared to someone "burning with fever", according to Ana Liza Solis, the head of climatology at the Philippines' national weather bureau.

"It can go into convulsions soon," she said during a press briefing in Manila in September. Forecasters believe the worst could yet come as sea surface temperatures in parts of the Pacific rocketed 4C above normal conditions - the highest since records began in 1949. A previous record of 3.6C was observed all the way back in December 1997. China's own climate agency said the sea surface temperature could continue to rise over the winter months due to El Niño. This has led to concern among experts in the region as typhoon season typically peaks in September and October.

Many countries are now bracing for impact with Japanese officials urging citizens to stockpile food, water and other essentials ahead of typhoon season. Beijing has also asked its citizens to identify vulnerable areas and upgraded its monitoring and alarm systems. "How severely a community experiences an El Niño is decided years in advance, by where roads and settlements are built, how water is managed, who is covered by social protection and whether public budgets have room to absorb a shock," said the United Nations Development Programme in Asia and the Pacific.

"Every El Niño tests the resilience we have built; this one should also drive us to build more."

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What we found (1)

The Mirror reports deadly typhoons across East Asia and puts their strength down to El Niño alone. It never tells its reader that a warming climate is making intense tropical cyclones more frequent and more severe, so the storms read as a purely natural cycle.

Leaves out the climate link
Serious
“Storms made worse by El Niño have battered vast swathes Taiwan, China , Japan and the Philippines, killing dozens”
Why this matters
The words "made worse by El Niño" name a single natural cycle as the reason these deadly storms were so severe.
The impression it gives
A reader comes away believing the typhoons that killed dozens were worsened only by a recurring natural weather pattern.
The context
Human-caused warming has made intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe. The article never mentions greenhouse gases, emissions or a warming climate anywhere in its account of a deadly storm season.
How we know
- On the recordThat warming has made hot extremes, heavy rainfall, agricultural and ecological drought, fire weather and intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
- Checked against the whole articleIt never uses the words “greenhouse” and “emissions”.
Show it in the article
“Experts claim the strength of the storm was turbocharged by El Niño - a climate phenomenon that warms sea water in the Pacific”
Why this matters
The Mirror explains record sea temperatures and a category five strength storm as the work of El Niño warming the water, with nothing on the long-term warming of the oceans underneath it.
The impression it gives
A reader believes the record 4C sea surface anomaly and the storm's power come from a natural phenomenon and nothing more.
The context
Human influence, chiefly burning fossil fuels, has warmed the ocean, and that warming makes intense tropical cyclones more likely. The article reports sea temperatures "the highest since records began in 1949" without one line connecting them to climate change.
How we know
- On the recordIt is unequivocal that human influence, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
- On the recordThat warming has made hot extremes, heavy rainfall, agricultural and ecological drought, fire weather and intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
- Elsewhere in the article“the highest since records began in 1949”
Show it in the article
Written straight
Storms made worse by El Niño have battered Taiwan, China, Japan and the Philippines, killing dozens. Climate change, driven by burning fossil fuels, is also making intense typhoons like these more frequent and more severe.

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Pacific Ocean like someone 'burning with fever' thanks to El Niño, experts warn as typhoons batter East Asia

Leaves out the climate link

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