http://www.globalpost.com/article/6690627/2015/11/19/el-nino-affect-17-mln-east-africa-countries
El Nino to affect 1.7 mln in East Africa countries
Xinhua News Agency
Nov 19, 2015 2:44 PM
NAIROBI, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- An estimated 1.7 million people could be affected by floods due to heavy rains pounding countries in the Eastern Africa region this year alone, the UN humanitarian agency warned on Thursday.
The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) pointed out that Kenya and Somalia would see the largest impact.
Excessive rain could result in localized displacement and increased incidence of communicable diseases, OCHA Eastern Africa region in its latest Humanitarian Bulletin released in Nairobi.
Based on meteorological data, large parts of the eastern Africa region have a 60 percent chance of seeing above average rainfall over the coming months.
During the last five El Nino events in the region, an average of one million people was affected by floods.
"With the current El Nino event expected to be the strongest on record, there is serious concern about flooding in the region. To date, some 90,000 people have been affected by floods in Somalia alone," the UN agency said.
The UN agency earlier estimated that 32.1 million people in East Africa would need food aid by the beginning of 2016 as El Nino phenomenon featuring heavy rains would worsen food security in the coming months in the region.
Governments and partners in Eastern Africa are racing against the clock to prepare for and mitigate flood impact. Aid supplies and boats are being prepositioned in flood-prone areas.
Humanitarian partners are working with local authorities and community leadership to strengthen local response capacity, reinforce river embankments and raise awareness.
In Kenya, a National El Nino taskforce was established to operationalize the national contingency plan and activate a national mass communication plan.
The El-Nino climate phenomenon, characterized by a warming in the Pacific Ocean, is set to strengthen over the coming months and persist into 2016. When El Nino occurs, rainfall patterns shift, increasing the risk of extreme weather events.
As compared to the flooding, drought conditions have persisted in South Sudan, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti and primarily Ethiopia where the number of food insecure would increase from 2.9 million people at the start of 2015 to a projected 15 million people in early 2016, the UN said.
Last week the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned that 11 million children are at risk from hunger, disease and lack of water in eastern and southern Africa alone as El Niño exacerbates a prolonged drought.
http://www.unocha.org/el-nino
What is El Niño and how often does it occur?
El Niño is a warming of the central to eastern tropical Pacific that occurs, on average, every two to seven years. During an El Niño event, sea surface temperatures across the Pacific can warm by 1–3°F or more for anything between a few months to a year or two. El Niño impacts weather systems around the globe so that some places receive more rain while others receive none at all, more extremes becoming the norm.
Why is everyone so concerned this year?
There were super El Niños in 1972-73, 1982-83 and in 1997-98, the latter bringing record global temperatures alongside droughts, floods and forest fires. The majority of climate models suggest the 2015/2016 El Niño will be of similar strength to 1997/1998, with El Niño gaining strength towards the end of 2015 and into 2016. This comes on top of already volatile and erratic weather patterns linked to climate change - 2014 and 2015 were already the hottest years on record with the Pacific Ocean already warming up to an unprecedented degree.
What is the humanitarian impact of El Niño?
Millions of people will be impacted by El Niño this year and next though an exact number is hard to pinpoint. Climate forecasters predict East Africa, Southern Africa, the Pacific Islands, South East Asia and Central America are most at risk of extreme weather, including below-normal rains and flooding. The humanitarian fallout in certain areas will include increased food insecurity due to low crop yields and rising prices; higher malnutrition rates; devastated livelihoods; and forced displacement.
What will be the impact on food prices?
Globally, cereal production in 2015 should not be much down on 2014’s record levels according to the World Food Programme (WFP) so in theory, production shortfalls should be balanced by increased production elsewhere. However, given production will be significantly down in specific countries, some will experience localised problems while grain-producing countries will experience more volatile prices says WFP. Maize production shortfalls in Malawi are likely to lead to a surge in prices in Southern Africa for instance (a 3.4 million MT maize shortfall is predicted in Tanzania and Zimbabwe), as well as in Central America. The food security effects will be worse for regions like the Horn of Africa, which are already suffering cumulative effects of past poor growing seasons. In highly import-dependent regions such as West Africa, consumers will face food insecurity due to increased rice prices.
What’s being done about El Niño?
National governments, the UN and NGOs are monitoring conditions on the ground and raising the alarm in countries at risk. OCHA has produced analyses on the current and projected humanitarian impact of El Niño in Asia, the Pacific, Southern Africa, Latin America and Eastern Africa. Humanitarian Country Teams are working closely with governments and developing preparedness and response plans in countries at risk or affected already, with a focus on responding early to the humanitarian needs that are emerging. The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) plans to allocate more than $85 million to aid agencies to respond to drought, drought-like situations and floods linked to El Niño.
But many plans face severe funding gaps and more robust support to these efforts is urgently needed to mitigate the effects of El Niño before it turns into a global humanitarian emergency. Early action is critical to help reduce vulnerability and the need for humanitarian assistance. El Niño will continue over the coming months and the investments made now will have an enormous return, both in terms of alleviating suffering and avoiding soaring costs. NGO Oxfam strikes a cautionary note, pointing to the impact of the slow international response to early warning of looming famine in the Horn of Africa in 2011, when millions of people suffered and 260,000 died. “We need to act now… The same must not happen in 2016.”
What next?
Evidence is emerging that climate change will increase the odds of a strong El Niño taking place, says Oxfam, with warming seas – and shifting wind systems - increasing the frequency of the most powerful El Niños. At the higher level, to address climate change in the longer-term, all Governments convening at the COP21 climate change conference in Paris this month must agree to cut greenhouse gas emissions to a maximum of 1.5 degrees stress aid agencies.
Received on Thu Nov 19 2015 - 10:41:43 EST