The Shadow of Economic Turmoil Due to the "Godzilla" El Niño

JAKARTA – The threat is not yet fully realised, but its impacts are already being calculated. The El Niño phenomenon, nicknamed “Godzilla,” is once again a topic of discussion, casting a long shadow that extends beyond weather to the economy. From potentially dry skies, concerns are slowly descending to the food sector and then spreading to prices in the market. Scientifically, El Niño is classified only as weak, moderate, or strong. The term “Godzilla” is used popularly to describe a very strong El Niño with widespread impacts. This term was first popularised by NASA scientist Bill Patzert in 2015 to describe one of the strongest El Niño events in modern history. In Indonesia, the term has gained renewed prominence after the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) mentioned the potential for a strong El Niño combined with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), which could worsen dry conditions. However, the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) emphasises that the current ENSO conditions remain in a neutral phase and have not yet been confirmed to develop into El Niño. Meanwhile, the outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration up to March 2026 indicates an increasing chance of El Niño during the June–August 2026 period, with a probability of around 62 percent. Thus, the possibility of it persisting until October remains a climate scenario, not a certainty. El Niño occurs when sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean become warmer than usual. In normal conditions, winds in the equatorial region push warm seawater westward, including towards Indonesia, which helps form rain clouds.