May 2014: The World is unprepared for El Nino: New Scientist

likely El Niño later this year.

World is unprepared for major El Niño later this year

• 07 May 2014 by Michael Slezak
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Wild weather is coming in 2014, with floods, storms and droughts expected around the Pacific, but little is being done to protect the people on the front line

THE weather is preparing to go wild, and will wreak havoc and death around the globe later this year. An El Niño, a splurge of warm water in the Pacific Ocean, is coming. It will unleash floods in the Americas, while South-East Asia and Australia face drought. Yet little is being done to address these consequences.

"The tropical climate system is primed for a big El Niño," says Axel Timmermann of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu (see diagram).

An El Niño begins when warm water near Indonesia spreads eastwards and rises to the surface of the Pacific. The warm water carries rain with it, so El Niño takes rain from Asia and Australia and dumps it on the Americas (see "Rising waters").

The effects can be deadly. A big El Niño in 1997-98 killed 20,000 people and caused almost $97 billion of damage.

Meteorologists contacted by New Scientist all expect an El Niño at the end of this year. And it looks like a big one, says Wenju Cai of CSIRO, Australia's national research agency, in Melbourne. The more heat in the Pacific, the bigger the El Niño, and right now, 150 metres below the surface, a ball of warm water is crossing that ocean. "It's huge," says Cai.

Yet official forecasts remain cautious. As recently as 5 May, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration only said the odds of an El Niño would exceed 50 per cent this year.

Most El Niño researchers say forecasters are being too conservative. "One thing I hear over and over again is 'we do not want to create a panic'," says Timmermann. There is a reason: forecasting a big El Niño would cause a spike in food prices. "But it may be better to have this reaction at an early stage, when farmers can still adapt, rather than later."

The good news is that El Niño is a known quantity. "We already know what happens when a big El Niño hits," says Zafar Adeel of the United Nations University in Hamilton, Canada. That means vulnerable populations can be identified and emergency plans put in place. But not everywhere has a plan.

California, which faces floods, is well prepared for emergencies and has water rescue teams, says David McEntire of the University of North Texas in Denton. But Central and South America are more vulnerable (see "In the firing line") and it is unclear what will happen in Asia and Australia (see "Monsoon disruption"). India has invested in water storage in case of drought.

Local forecasts are crucial, says Zafar, because large-scale predictions can get the fine detail wrong. In 1997, after a coarse-grained forecast, Costa Rica moved thousands of cattle away from an area where drought was expected. But they moved into an area of worse drought and died.

A big El Niño does not have to be a disaster. Impacts like shifting fish stocks and changes in rainfall can be handled, or even turned into benefits, if people are prepared for them. "But you need that trigger saying 'yes it's going to be a big one'," says Zafar.

Leader: "El Niño forecasters must not repeat mistakes of 1997"

This article appeared in print under the headline "Sitting ducks in coming storm"

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likely El Niño later this year.

If we look at what just happened in Japan and what is about to happen there again and look at the two storms bearing down on Hawaii right now, there is ample evidence that what comes next after these storms might be even worse than anyone ever expected from an El Nino.