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“Keeping track of all the media coverage surrounding El Niño can be confusing"
Researchers have developed a new website that is open to everyone. It shows how media coverage compares to actual climate events.
When the El Niño weather phenomenon occurs, the whole world feels its effect: Flooding in South America, droughts in Australia and Indonesia, heatwaves in Europe, and disruptions to agriculture and water resources.
These are all part of a climate story that unfolds simultaneously across continents.
A new El Niño is already underway. This time, it's a particularly strong variant, sometimes describes as a super El Niño.
Difficult to see the bigger picture
El Niño is a global phenomenon. Nevertheless, news coverage often focuses on local events. This makes it difficult to see the bigger picture and understand how different regions experience the same climate event.
Eurico Noleto-Filho is a researcher at the University of Bergen and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research. Together with several collaborators, he has developed a new interactive dashboard to help bridge this gap. It tracks and analyses global media coverage of El Niño.
“Given the current strong El Niño, we searched the web for something similar to help us as researchers get a clearer picture of what was happening around the world. We couldn’t find what we were looking for, so we decided to build it ourselves,” he says.
The tool combines news reporting from around the world with natural disaster records and environmental data. This makes it possible to compare what is reported in the media with what is actually happening on the ground.
“Keeping track of all the media coverage surrounding El Niño can be confusing. That's why I developed this tool. It was something I knew I could use myself, and I believe it can be useful for many others as well,” says Noleto-Filho.
Seeing the global story
Wherever you live, the news typically tells you about the climate hazards happening closest to you. These may include local droughts and floods, as well as effects on agriculture and water supply.
At the same time, communities elsewhere may be experiencing very different consequences of the same climate phenomenon.
The dashboard brings these local stories together in one place.
Every day, it gathers and analyses reporting from news outlets around the world. This allows users to explore how El Niño is discussed across countries, languages, and regions.
“It gives users the opportunity to compare reporting across national borders,” says Noleto-Filho.
He explains that putting these stories side by side makes it easier to understand the global scale of El Niño and how differently the phenomenon is portrayed in the media.
The platform is particularly useful for researchers, journalists, communication advisers, and students. It is intended for anyone interested in climate communication, media studies, and climate risks.
Mapping media attention
At the centre of the dashboard is an interactive world map filled with coloured circles.
The size of each circle represents the volume of media coverage related to El Niño. The colour indicates how seriously the topic is portrayed.
Areas receiving extensive attention appear larger. This makes it easy to identify where reporting is most concentrated.
The dashboard also includes a range of filters and controls that allow users to customise the display.
For example, users can:
Explore up to 30 days of media coverage.
Focus on reporting from specific countries.
Compare El Niño reporting with broader climate-related media coverage.
Examine changes over time.
“There are lots of different controls that can give you a more specific view, depending on your needs,” Eurico explains.
Comparing reporting with real events
The dashboard allows users to compare media attention with actual disaster events.
An overlay displays records from the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS). This is a collaboration between the United Nations and the European Commission. It records and monitors disasters such as floods, droughts, wildfires, and cyclones.
With this feature activated, these events appear as green rings on the map. This makes it possible to investigate whether major disasters receive extensive media attention or whether certain events and regions are underreported.
This is particularly useful for those studying risk communication and media coverage.
“This comparison allows users to explore the relationship between what happens and what gets reported,” says Noleto-Filho.
The disaster data is updated daily alongside the news data. This creates a continuously updated picture of both disaster events and media attention.
Climate data at your fingertips
The dashboard goes beyond media coverage and disaster records. Users can add various environmental overlays, including:
Sea surface temperature
Clouds
Wind
Rainfall
Multiple layers can be displayed simultaneously, making it possible to compare different environmental conditions.
For example, users can investigate how sea surface temperature patterns relate to rainfall. They can also compare weather conditions with ongoing media coverage in a specific region.
These features help place news stories within their broader climate context.
AI scans and summarises news coverage
El Niño is often studied separately from its social and economic impacts. This is partly because such information is not readily available in structured datasets. Instead, it is scattered across news reports in dozens of languages.
“Today's language models are changing this. They can read this material and automatically organise it into a database that records the country, date, event type, severity, reported deaths, and the cause identified in the report itself,” says Noleto-Filho.
The dashboard has a built-in AI tool that can help make sense of the information. By clicking a dedicated button, users receive a short summary of the latest reporting, generated with the help of AI.
The feature scans and summarises large volumes of news coverage. It thereby helps users quickly identify key themes, emerging concerns, and important developments.
Exploring trends in the news
The dashboard also contains a collection of analytical charts that help users explore patterns in media coverage.
These visualisations make it possible to track:
How topics develop over time.
Whether journalists attribute events to El Niño or deny such connections.
The tone used in reporting.
Frequently used words and themes.
Cycles of media attention.
Changes in reported severity.
Publishing activity across countries and regions.
Together, these tools provide a detailed picture of how El Niño is framed, discussed, and understood in media coverage around the world.
Why understanding El Niño matters
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern. It occurs when temperatures in parts of the tropical Pacific Ocean become warmer than normal. The phenomenon typically occurs every three to seven years and can influence weather patterns worldwide.
Because its impacts are so widespread and vary from region to region, communicating those risks effectively is an important part of climate preparedness.
When local communities receive accurate information at the right time, they are better equipped to prepare for floods, droughts, heatwaves, and other climate-related hazards.
That's why it's important to understand how those stories are reported, as well as which stories may be overlooked.
The dashboard brings together media coverage, disaster records, and environmental observations in one place. It gives us a new way to examine one of the world's most influential climate phenomena.
As the next El Niño unfolds, the tool provides insight not only into what is happening around the world, but also into how the world is talking about it.
Reference:
Noleto-Filho et al. The Climate News Watch. El Niño special edition, The GDELT Project, GDACS, 2026.
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