Word: nino
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...storm belt from one part of the Pacific to another. The rearrangement has reverberations throughout the atmosphere, causing droughts in places as far-flung as northeastern Brazil, southern Africa and Australia, while other regions, from California to Cuba, can be hit by torrential rains. These effects are variable. El Nino may weaken the Indian monsoon--or barely affect...
...northern hemisphere's jet stream, for instance, can be expected to direct moisture-laden storms on a more southerly route over the U.S., while a nudge in the opposite direction will result in snow and rain farther north. But figuring out exactly how a particular El Nino will affect North America is no easy matter because particular effects can be amplified or reduced by other phenomena that are less well understood...
...climate. Already, says climatologist Antonio Moura, the director, he and other scientists have begun to produce experimental forecasts of the probable impact of the ENSO cycle on selected regions. Thus rice, corn and bean farmers in northeast Brazil, say, could, if adequately forewarned, mitigate the effect of El Nino-associated droughts by planting rapidly maturing varieties of seed. The only hitch is that if they switch and a drought does not occur, their crop yields would be lower than normal...
This puts a lot of pressure on climate modelers, who, even as their forecasts improve, will surely couch them in caveats. As TV viewers know from nightly weather forecasts, an 80% chance of rain doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be unfurling their umbrellas. At an El Nino symposium held at headquarters in Boulder, Colo., University of Washington atmospheric physicist Edward Sarachik suggested that people most affected by the ENSO cycle--not just farmers and fishermen but also commodities traders, water-resource managers and insurance underwriters--should look at a prediction the way a savvy gambler might look...
Because of the high economic stakes and greater public awareness, observes Michael Hall, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Global Programs, the 1997-98 El Nino is shaping up as something more significant than another mighty misfire of the weather machine. It is also a social experiment that will reveal how people around the world react to climate change that is predictable in its broad outlines but unknowable in its details...