Africa-Press – Eritrea. Wilfran Moufouma Okia from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the U.N. weather agency, says
The WMO says La Nina conditions have strengthened in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific with an increase in trade winds in recent weeks.
This could mean that for the third year in a row the phenomenon known as La Nina is poised to last through the end of this year, a mysterious “triple dip” — the first this century.
The agency cautions that the “triple dip” doesn’t mean global warming is easing.
says Okia.
Floods, droughts and extreme weather are all examples of the impacts of La Nina conditions, which involve a large-scale cooling of ocean surface temperatures.Despite La Nina being a cooling cycle, it still is impacted by climate change adds Okia:
La Nina has different impacts around the region says Okia:
“When you have La Nina, West Africa — an area going from Senegal to Sudan — normally is struck by floods; East Africa by drought; Australia, Indonesia with floods, and so forth. So knowing the evolution of La Nina helps us anticipate.”
At least 1 million people in Somalia have been displaced by the worst drought in decades, driven by climate change, that also affects the wider Horn of Africa including Ethiopia and Kenya.
“One of the regions mostly affected by La Nina is East Africa, where we had a long drought. We’ve also seen places like California with the drought and Australia with floods,” he adds.
La Nina often leads to more Atlantic hurricanes, less rain and more wildfires in the western United States, and agricultural losses in the central U.S.
El Nino and La Nina occur every three to seven years with the ocean returning to more normal temperatures in between. El Nino is more frequent than La Nina.
Together El Nino, La Nina and the neutral condition are called ENSO, which stands for El Nino Southern Oscillation, and they have one of the largest natural effects on climate, at times augmenting and other times dampening the big effects of human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas, scientists say.
***AFP***
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