Blain’s Morning Porridge Friday 13th March 2026 – Forget Iran, worry about Climate Whiplash and El Nino.
“Out of the frying pan into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. Instability begets instability.”
While global markets are fixated on the Gulf, cast a weather eye on the Eastern Pacific where a Super El Nino climate event is developing. It could lead to Climate Whiplash events in terms of flood, storms and drought, food inflation and increasing migration tensions. It never rains, but it pours – and that’s not necessarily good for the most important commodity on the planet: Water!
Resilience is a marvellous word. How able are we to withstand the consequences of our multiple failings and keep smiling? Life is about making mistakes and how we recover from them – how resilient are we to the challenges and disasters that life sends our way?
When I was a child, we were taught “it’s never anyone’s fault but your own” – that it’s our own responsibility to “resiliently” work our way out of crisis. Sh*t happens as they say… deal with it. Fortunately, most of the time outcomes from bad decisions are never as bad as we fear, but seldom as good as we hope, which is Blain’s Market Mantra No 2.
I was with clients in London y’day and all they wanted to talk about was anything except what’s going on in the Gulf. They are struggling with Trump/Iran burnout syndrome – watching and listening to every move and comment so intently they have become increasingly anaesthetised to it. Oil prices are rising, stocks are falling, bonds are flustered, and even reputable analysts are saying the best hope for the market is yet another Trump Taco – although I reckon it’s too late for that and he’s in too deep…. We will wake up Monday and maybe it will all have magically solved itself – or it will have got worse.
The thing about the energy crisis that’s roiling global markets is it’s the result of the actions of the players involved in it – they can talk, they can deal, they can compromise and make a bad situation slightly better. That’s the hope. (And if you are playing the market on Iran, then you factor the mercurial Trump into the equation.)
But there are other kinds of crisis where the momentum is very different…. Where talking about it isn’t going to solve it… natural disasters like an earthquake or a volcano, or long-term change like climate warming. We can feel an earthquake and watch a volcano – therefore we know they are very real and even though they are not our fault we will have to deal the consequences.
But climate warming?
So, yesterday I talked to my “bored of Iran” clients about climate change…. Surely not? All that ESG nonsense is behind us… Donald Trump says it’s a hoax – and he is the biggliest clever man on the planet. What if… perish the thought, what if Trump is wrong? Actually, it doesn’t matter: If the Earth is getting warmer, it’s getting warmer and we have to deal with the consequences.
Earlier this week I was intrigued to read about the expected Super El-Nino Event that’s developing in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific. El Nino’s occur when the surface waters warm up, weaking the usual trade winds that blow North and South around the Earths middle. In a Super El-Nino the sea temps become exceedingly warm – triggering a greater magnitude of climate effects. As any data scientist will tell you… the greater the magnitude of change, the more likely the system is to turn chaotic.
The Climate Prediction Centre, part of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was brave to put out the prediction of an El-Nino. Last year Trump fired thousands of Federal Emergency Management Agency workers and is known to be sceptical on NOAA. Will he close them down completely for their temerity?
It was thought Super El-Ninos were rare 3-Sigma events… occurring once or twice per century. As climate science developed the numbers rose to maybe three or four times as the research developed. They appear to be becoming even more frequent – the last one was just 10-years ago leading to record temperatures around the globe.
Climate scientists reckon the one developing now could be a magnitude bigger than the last one in 2016 which caused drought across nations to the West (India, South-East Asia, Australia and South Africa) and flooding to the East across the Americas, and East Africa. It triggered a slew of agricultural crises as rice and wheat production fell and the largest fishery on the planet, anchovies off the West Coast of South America, was gutted as ocean currents were diverted, leading to food price inflation. As weather conditions worsen and food become scarce, then forced migration becomes an issue – and potential conflict point.
2023 and then 2024 were the successive warmest years on record. If the climate scientists are right – 2027 could be even warmer as the El Nino develops through the remainder of this year. 2025 was the third warmest year, and that was because of La Nina, the opposite effect to El Nino, where the Eastern Pacific cools. Now that trend has reversed. The medium-term trend highlights the last few decades have become increasingly warm. Not climate hoax – but fact. Inconvenient? Huh… (That’ll peeve Trump’s truth… Al Gore was right?)
Scientists have come up with a new way to describe the potential consequences of extreme weather events – Climate Whiplash.
It describes how extreme fluctuations in the weather between more powerful and frequent storms, floods and drought and increasingly violent climate events could put billions of lives at risk. That fits all our usual descriptions of chaotic events – how bounded numbers start to break out the predictive norms trigger new and unforeseen consequences.
As weather patterns become less predictable, planning to address the consequences become less effective – we start to move into chaotic scenarios. In parts of Africa, the rain is no longer a blessing, but are now so heavy they destroy the infrastructure that’s been set up to harness them while leaching minerals out the soil. Its triggering massive internal migration away from flood plains into already overcrowded cities, or into nature reserves.
The core issue is water – more or less of it, and what there is being more destructive. Alongside that is the consequences of growth and rising populations over-using current water resources, depleting water reserves and causing increasingly polluted rivers to run dry. A recent UN climate report on “Global Water Bankruptcy” made the point we’re beyond water stress and crisis for much of the planet. A Super El-Nino event may make things even worse. And it’s not just happening in the Third World – one key crisis point is Southwest USA where the Colorado River and its reservoirs have become the clearest example yet of over-promised water.
Some of the numbers are frightening.
- 70% of major aquifers are in decline.
- 30% of glaciers have melted in 50 years.
- 4 billion people face water scarcity
- 50% of global food is produced in water stressed regions
- 2 bln people living in drought stressed regions
While we fret about oil and energy ructions, the fact the global economy is ultimately based on water and food is critical. Let’s not ignore it… it has to be addressed.
Out of time and have a great weekend…
Bill Blain
Author of the Morning Porridge
Advisor – Spitfire Strategic Capital
One Comment
Comments are closed.
I keep thinking of Bill Gates’s opinion that productive agricultural land will turn out to be the best long term investment of all. After all, it has inherent value that even gold lacks.