Children in Peru on the front line of a severe cyclical warming of the Pacific Ocean in 1997-98 suffered stunted growth, showing how extreme weather can cause lasting damage to health.
The study of 2,095 children born between 1991 and 2001 in villages around Tumbes in northern Peru found that those born during or just after the El Nino weather system, which caused floods, damaged crops and triggered illnesses such as malaria and diarrhoea, grew less than normal.
“The El Nino had a big effect by reducing food availability,” William Checkley, one of the authors at Johns Hopkins University, told Reuters.
“Children aged under three, a crucial period for growth, were hardest hit.”
Overall, children in areas apparently hardest hit by floods were 4 centimetres shorter than normal by the age of 10, Mr Checkley said.
Stunting has been linked with decreased mental and physical capacity in later life.
“If adverse weather events affect a significant portion of young children of a country, then they have the potential to adversely affect the future of a community as a whole,” said the study by scientists in the US, Peru and Britain.
A UN report this month said downpours linked with El Nino events, which typically happen every three to seven years and can disrupt weather worldwide, may intensify because of climate change.
Officials from almost 200 governments will meet in Lima in December for UN talks about ways to slow global warming.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology revealed last week that the tropical Pacific was showing renewed signs of El Nino conditions.
The study was published in the journal Climate Change Responses.
Reuters