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WEATHER-ELNINO-UN
75-80 percent chance of El Nino in next 3 months: UN
GENEVA, Nov 27, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – There is a 75 to 80 percent chance of a
moderate El Nino event forming in the next three months, possibly impacting
weather patterns in several regions, the UN said Tuesday.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) noted that the impending El
Nino is not expected to be as powerful as the 2015-2016 event that was linked
to droughts, floods and coral bleaching.
But, it “can still significantly affect rainfall and temperature patterns
in many regions, with important consequences to agricultural and food
security sectors… and public health,” the head of WMO’s climate prediction
branch, Maxx Dilley, said in a statement.
“It may combine with long-term climate change to boost 2019 global
temperatures,” he added.
El Nino is triggered by periodic warming in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It
typically emerges every three to seven years.
WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis was asked to respond to US President Donald
Trump’s assertion that he doesn’t believe his own government’s report last
week warning of massive economic losses if carbon emissions continue to feed
climate change unchecked.
Without criticising Trump directly, Nullis insisted the report’s findings
could not be casually dismissed.
“It’s a federally mandated report and it’s 13 agencies. It’s hundreds of
scientists so it’s not just a couple of scientists seating in a backroom
somewhere with a computer. It’s a very detailed assessment based on the best
available science,” she told reporters in Geneva.
The report by the National Climate Assessment said there will be hundreds
of billions of dollars in losses by the end of the century due to climate
change “without substantial and sustained global mitigation”.
BSS/AFP/RY/1947 hrs