This year’s especially strong El Niño is likely to exact a large death toll in some regions.

Scientists in Spain examined the historical impact of El Niño seasons on mortality. Compared to the baseline, very strong seasons were associated with more than 100,000 extra heat-related deaths worldwide, though they were also offset by a similar reduction in cold-related deaths, they found. Given climate change trends, however, severe bouts of El Niño will probably cause even more death and destruction from now on, the researchers say.

“In a context of continuously warming temperatures, our results indicate that forthcoming El Niño events have the potential to represent new public health challenges,” they wrote in their paper, published last week in Nature Medicine.

El Niño is the warming phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, a natural climate phenomenon that affects sea surface temperatures in the tropical areas of the Pacific Ocean. This season’s El Niño is the strongest ever documented in modern history and is likely a once-in-a-millennium event. While this El Niño will not reach its expected peak until December, we’re already starting to see its drastic effects on marine wildlife, weather events like rain and floods, and natural disasters like wildfires.

Winter Hasn’t Even Started, and El Niño Is Already Drenching the US From Coast to Coast

El Niño is well known to raise the risk of extreme and dangerous weather events. But the study researchers, affiliated with the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, say that its effects on temperature-related deaths haven’t been quantified on a global level.

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