Facing a super El Niño, this scientist says we can look to the past for climate solutions | CBC Radio

Indigenous science getting attention globally as climate change worsens extreme weather events

A Peruvian researcher has turned to her ancestors' solutions to extreme weather events and climate change — and she’s not the only one.

“There’s so much space and need right now to look into our past,” the scientist said. “Into our ancestral civilization — Indigenous populations — and how they have already figured out systems to deal with these different changes in the climate and in the ocean patterns.”

The government of Peru has declared a state of emergency due to heavy, unseasonal rains linked to El Niño, but even before that Espinoza sensed things would be different.

“Having just really intense heat, non-stop, throughout all of these different microclimates, it definitely signals that something is off.”

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El Niño is a natural phenomenon where the Pacific Ocean warms due to a disruption in trade winds, which blow east-to-west around the equator. It can cause intense rains and droughts across Latin America, including in areas that wouldn’t otherwise see them. The World ‌Meteorological Organization has warned that this year’s El Niño could be the strongest since the agency began monitoring the weather phenomenon. Espinoza is concerned about it causing everything from droughts and flooding to a rise in mosquito-borne diseases and disruption to food.

Facing a troubling future, Espinoza is hopeful she can look to history to provide answers.

And archeological evidence suggests the Incas could have important messages about weathering El Niño and climate change today.

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A 2025 study found evidence that just under a thousand years ago, during a warming period called the Medieval Climate Anomaly , the Incan communities in the Andes adapted. They moved higher into the mountains, constructed sophisticated terraces and irrigation systems and planted trees that made the soil more fertile. And they relied on other resources — like llamas and alpacas — to make the system work.