United Nations University
27 Oct 2000
Thousands of human casualties and tens of billions of dollars in economic damage will continue to befall the world’s developing countries every two to seven years until an investment is made to improve forecasting and preparedness against El Nino, a new international study warns.
The study, a joint project of UN University, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the US- based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), says more reliable El Nino forecasts and the capability of governments to react quickly to them are critical. In the absence of such capabilities, vulnerable people, infrastructure and economies in many parts of the world will continue to suffer periodically from El Nino’s wrath – floods, fires, drought, cyclones, and outbreaks of infectious disease.
The creation of regional organizations to prepare collective responses to El Nino is one of the key recommendations from the 19- month study developed by teams of researchers working in 16 countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The research was made possible with the support of the United Nations Foundation through the UN Fund for International Partnerships.
The study says few forecasters came close to forecasting El Nino’s onset in mid-1997 and none were able to grasp the magnitude of the “El Nino of the Century” until it was well under way. National and regional forecasters typically provided predictions of El Nino impacts that in many cases were too general to be used with confidence by national and local decision makers. In some places, authorities were forced to make vital and costly decisions with uncertain – and in some cases misleading – information about El Nino’s expected punch.
“El Nino is not a freak occurrence – it recurs every two to seven years on average and is becoming an increasingly predictable part of the global climate system. We need to accelerate our understanding of it and be better braced to deal with its devastating consequences,” said Hans van Ginkel, UN Under Secretary-General and Rector of UN University.
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