El Nino ‘97-98: Ignore the Warnings at Your Peril
The El Nino of 1982-83 may go down as one of history’s biggest forecasting blunders, and that’s a good place to start in understanding the voluminous research, warnings and advice on how to prepare for and survive the current incarnation.
By now, you’ve no doubt heard that this unusual and periodic event involves a massive warming of waters in the eastern Pacific. But that hardly describes the fact that El Nino is a huge driving force that sometimes pushes the world’s weather to disastrous and deadly extremes.
As a physical phenomenon, the current El Nino covers an ocean area that is 1.5 times the size of the continental United States, and it’s growing. Water temperature changes in an El Nino can extend half a mile or more below the surface. They shove enormous amounts of heat and water into the atmosphere.
An El Nino can override powerful rivers in the ocean such as the cold-water Humboldt Current and change tide patterns. It also can prompt dramatic shifts in wildlife populations and wreck fishing and agriculture over much of the world. It can shift the high-altitude jet stream, reverse traditional wind patterns and spawn devastating droughts and floods. It not only dwarfs other weather-related events such as hurricanes and tornadoes but can trigger them or suppress and deflect them.
So how was it possible to miss forecasting all this in 1982-83? Why wasn’t it detected in advance? The answer is that it was detected, but the changes were so huge and so anomalous that scientists didn’t understand or believe what they were seeing. Computers, programmed to tight parameters for what was deemed to be possible, disregarded some incoming data as faulty. As a result, there was little accurate information before and during an El Nino episode that claimed at least 2,000 lives and caused $13 billion in damage here and around the world.
Small wonder then that the current El Nino has prompted more intense research and better computer modeling than ever, all with the goal of producing vital scientific information that is tailored to the needs and concerns of local, state and national government officials.
It’s true that there is no proof that this El Nino will impact Southern California as much as or more than the one in 1982-83. But that does not make the warnings, constantly aired in recent weeks, any less important. The flood channels must be cleared soon. Emergency preparedness drills should be conducted and disaster preparations should be in place. Flood insurance should be considered by those in at-risk areas. The federal government’s “El Nino Summit” to be held here next month should be viewed as an event worthy of considerable attention.
This is the time of year when Californians traditionally prepare for fires, mudslides and flooding. That will not be sufficient this year. There are indications that this El Nino may be one of the worst ever.
Already, Indonesia faces its worst drought in 50 years, and 1 million people there are threatened with famine. Raging fires on the archipelago have claimed a number of lives and sent a thick blanket of smoke over much of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. South of the U.S. border, Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile and other nations are suffering torrential rains, flooding and intense heat waves. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization fears that harvests of cereals around the world may suffer.
That kind of impact sends a message to Southern Californians: Preparing for the worst even though it might not occur is a price worth paying. Those who ignored warnings about the 1982-83 El Nino would tell you so.
