El Nino brings drought to Africa
By Aidan Hartley
NAIROBI, Reuter - From the Cape to Cairo, Africa is suffering one of its most devastating droughts in living memory and weathermen say worse may be to come.
Meteorologists, who have been warning the world about the problem for months, blame it on a fluke weather condition called El Nino - "the Christ child".
‘In continental terms, it’s the most widespread drought for decades," says Harold Norton, Kenya representative of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
‘Millions of livestock are dying and crops aren’t growing."
Ihousands of people are already dying in war-torn Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan and the FAO estimates that 20 Countries are facing exceptional food emergencies.
Weathermen say the drought that has already swept southern Africa is rolling north up the east of the continent. They say their warnings have fallen mostly on deaf ears -which means a mad scramble now to come up with stocks of relief food.
The name El Nino was originally used to describe seasonal warming of the Pacific Ocean’s surface waters off the coast of Peru, but meteorologists later found this process was connected with world atmospheric changes.
Experts say not enough is yet known to accurately predict the impact of El Ninos, or "warm events", but they occur about twice a decade and last from 12 to 18 months.
After the last strong El Nino episode in 1982-83, relief officials estimated that one million Ethiopias starved to death because of the combined ravages of the drought and a drawn-out civil war.
A much weaker warm episode was recorded in 1986-87, followed by a less severe drought across parts of the continent.
"Our thinking is that this year is going to be much closer to 1982-83," says Workneh Degefu, head of the UN’s drought monitoring centre for east and southern Africa in Nairobi.
Degefu says that east Africa’s short rains at the end of last year were inadequate and that the current long rains arrived late and will have a poor distribution.
More frightening is the forecast that the long "Meher" rains in Ethiopia's densely-populatcd north that normally last from June to September will fail badly, says Degefu, head of the Ethiopian meteorological department in the 1980s.
"Warm events" set off extreme weather conditions around the world, from floods in southeastern Brazil to droughts in India.
In east and southern Africa, El Nino episodes tend to affect rain-carrying bands of low pressure, making clouds disappear.
The warm episodes have apparently been a feature of the world’s climate for a long time - Chinese expert Wang Shaowu has calculated from historical evidence such as tree-rings that 115 have taken place since 1470,
Scientists say the impact of El Nino could become more severe as the world’s forests are cut down and marginal land is brought under cultivation.
Global warming could also affect the severity of El Nino, a U N conference in Bangkok concluded last November.
Meteorologists started sending warnings to African planners in March 1991 that another drought could be on its way.
"We were able to second-guess Africa’s weather with some six months’ to a year’s warning," says Peter Usher, head of the Nairobi-based U N Environment Programme atmosphere unit.
But the forecasters complain their alarm signals were not taken seriously enough by international donors and governments.
"Again we seem to have been caught unprepared," says Usher.
A special FAO report published recently calls for imports of at least 11 million tonnes of food to Africa for this and next year. This excludes South Africa, which might have to import three million tonnes.
"Without the mobilisation of the required international assistance, increased human suffering and loss of life will inevitably occur in the months ahead," the report warned.
About half the food will have to be commercially imported, costing impoverished Africa’s treasuries scarce foreign exchange in a year when the drought will also hit production of export commodities, economic analysts point out.
The FAO report added that Africa’s needs come at a time when world food supplies are not growing and demands for assistance are escalating in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Source : Borneo Bulletin, May 11, 1992
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