Tracking Indian Ocean climate patterns could improve early-warning systems for the El Nino phenomenon, helping save lives and billions of dollars lost each year to the severe weather it causes.
In a paper published in Nature Geoscience, researchers in Japan and France said their new forecast model could predict an El Nino 14 months ahead of time, several months earlier than with current methods.
“It is important because ... this helps to improve El Nino forecasts. It can save a lot of money for agriculture,” lead researcher Takeshi Izumo at the Research Institute for Global Change in Yokohama, Japan, said by telephone.
The El Nino phenomenon is a climate pattern that occurs periodically over the Pacific Ocean and is well known for the havoc it wreaks, such as floods, droughts and other forms of severe weather.
Developing countries heavily dependent on agriculture and fishing are most badly affected, though the 1997-1998 El Nino cost the US an estimated US$25 billion, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
Izumo and his colleagues found that the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), the equivalent of an El Nino in the Indian Ocean, had a role in causing the phenomenon.
“IOD strongly influences the triggering of El Nino [the following year]. In this study, we did a simple forecast model, we included the IOD index and we can have a very good forecast for the El Nino in the next year,” Izumo said.
“In a way we found a missing piece of the puzzle for triggering an El Nino. We showed here that in addition to the usual causal factor, which is that of warm water volume recharge, there is the IOD which is a very important causal factor for El Nino development,” he said.
Accurate and early prediction of the El Nino can help better mitigate the destruction caused by the phenomenon.
“Because of the overwhelming consequences of El Nino on global weather, ecosystems, and its strong socioeconomic and ecological consequences, El Nino forecasting is important for disaster prevention and impact management, and helps to reduce El Nino-related losses,” Izumo said.
During the 1997 El Nino, one of the strongest recorded, Indonesia suffered a large number of fires, partly caused by drought, he said.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr is to meet US President Donald Trump this week, hoping Manila’s status as a key Asian ally would secure a more favorable trade deal before the deadline on Friday next week. Marcos would be the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump in his second term. Trump has already struck trade deals with two of Manila’s regional partners, Vietnam and Indonesia, driving tough bargains in trade talks even with close allies that Washington needs to keep onside in its strategic rivalry with China. “I expect our discussions to focus on security and defense, of course, but also
POINTING FINGERS: The two countries have accused each other of firing first, with Bangkok accusing Phnom Penh of targeting civilian infrastructure, including a hospital Thai acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai yesterday warned that cross-border clashes with Cambodia that have uprooted more than 130,000 people “could develop into war,” as the countries traded deadly strikes for a second day. A long-running border dispute erupted into intense fighting with jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, and the UN Security Council was set to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis yesterday. A steady thump of artillery strikes could be heard from the Cambodian side of the border, where the province of Oddar Meanchey reported that one civilian — a 70-year-old man — had been killed and
‘OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGE’: Antonio Costa and Ursula von der Leyen are to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss EU-China relations and geopolitical challenges Top leaders from China and the EU are to hold a summit in Beijing this week, as the major economic powers seek to smooth over disputes ranging from trade to the Ukraine conflict. Beijing and Brussels have been gearing up to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, but a suite of squabbles over state subsidies, market access and wartime sanctions have dampened the festivities. A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday confirmed that European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would visit on Thursday. The statement came after the EU
RSS