El Niño is commonly linked to droughts in southern Africa and extreme rainfall in eastern Africa. … Drought and flooding in sub-Saharan Africa are often considered most closely in relation to risks to agriculture. But increasing urbanisation is changing the nature of climate risk in the region.
What are the effects of El Nino in Southern Africa?
El Nino Impacts (2015/16 Season)
accompanied by high temperatures leading to: – Reduced crop yields – Cattle deaths – Low dam levels due to less inflows – Sectors affected include food security, livelihoods, agriculture, livestock, nutrition, health and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).
How does El Niño and La Niña affect the weather in South Africa?
It has the opposite impacts on weather and climate as El Niño, which is the warm phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The Horn of Africa and central Asia will see below average rainfall due to La Niña, WMO said. … La Niña could also lead to increased rainfall in southern Africa, WMO said.
How does El Nino affect agricultural production in southern Africa?
El Niño usually affects the main growing season across Southern Africa by causing widespread drier than average conditions and lower vegetation growth across the region.
How does El Nino affect Africa’s economy?
El Nino typically brings increased rains to Africa’s east. … Recent El Nino events brought floods to Kenya in 1997-1998 and 2006-2007, resulting in losses of lives, harvests and livestock as well as infrastructure damage and outbreaks of hunger and disease.
What is the main cause of El Nino?
El Nino is essentially caused by the interaction between the surface layers of the tropical Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere over it. The water is warmer due to the trade winds reversing direction or becoming less intense. … In contrast El Nino can also bring flooding and heavy rainfall in other areas.
What are 3 effects of El Nino?
Severe drought and associated food insecurity, flooding, rains, and temperature rises due to El Niño are causing a wide range of health problems, including disease outbreaks, malnutrition, heat stress and respiratory diseases.
What does La Nina mean for South Africa?
La Niña is a weather pattern that results in the abnormal cooling of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific. The event enhances the probabilities for summer rains globally including Southern Africa, particularly in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia and South Africa.
Is La Nina year 2020?
The 2020-2021 La Niña event appears to have peaked in October-December as a moderate strength event. The latest forecasts from the WMO Global Producing Centers of Long-Range Forecasts indicate a moderate likelihood (65%) that the La Niña event will continue into February-April.
What does El Nino mean for South Africa?
An estimated 40 million people have been affected by El Nino in Southern Africa. This number has increased from 28 million since the beginning of the year. … El Nino usually means less rainfall in most countries, but high rainfall in some countries. The current El Nino phenomenon is the strongest and longest in 35 years.
What is the conclusion of El Nino?
There is a consensus among climate scientists that El Niño events have become more frequent and progressively warmer over the past fifty years. Beyond that, there is a little agreement, particularly about whether human activity (e.g., the global warming issue) might be exacerbating their effects.
Does El Nino cause flooding?
Typically dry regions can experience nearly two times as much rain during a strong El Niño. … Major El Niño events—such as 1972-73, 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16—have provoked some of the great floods, droughts, forest fires, and coral bleaching events of the past half-century.
How does El Nino cause drought in South Africa?
Wanders: “The stronger the El Niño signal, the less water is available in the region. … These lower discharges also have a direct influence on water storage levels in the reservoirs. If there is a continuous shortage of water feeding the reservoirs, this will inevitably lead to water shortages and thus drought.
What does El Nino effect?
El Niño and La Niña are associated with substantial socio-economic impacts in South America, which can often be linked to corresponding changes in precipitation and temperature, thereby, triggering (or amplifying) drought and/or flooding.
What is El Nino effect?
The term El Niño (Spanish for ‘the Christ Child’) refers to a warming of the ocean surface (or above-average sea surface temperatures) in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. … El Niño events can disrupt normal weather patterns in the United States and globally.
What are the economic consequences of El Nino?
On the negative side, in Australia El Niño causes hot and dry summers in the southeast, increases the frequency and severity of bush fires, reduces wheat export volumes, and drives up global wheat prices, leading to a drop in the country’s real GDP growth.