Brace for El Nino from next month, scientists warn
Flooded Kenyatta Avenue in Nairobi County following heavy rains on March 23.
What you need to know:
- According to the IGAD's Climate Prediction and Adaptation Centre (ICPAC), certain regions in eastern Kenya that have experienced drought in the past will have longer periods of rainfall from October to December this year.
- Dr Guleid Artan, ICPAC director, said the El Niño onset has two sides of the coin, one which is positive and another negative.
As the short rains approach, climate scientists are predicting an increase in rainfall in some parts of Kenya and the greater Horn of Africa. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) shared this forecast during the 65th Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum held in Nairobi.
According to the IGAD's Climate Prediction and Adaptation Centre (ICPAC), certain regions in eastern Kenya that have experienced drought in the past will have longer periods of rainfall from October to December this year. ICPAC’s climate modelling expert, Hussen Seid said there will be a 90 per cent chance that the rainfall in those regions will exceed 200 millimetres.
Dr Seid added that the wetter-than-usual estimate is higher than historical values, predicting that 2023 will likely have El Niño conditions. "El Niño is a climate phenomenon characterised by the periodic warming of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. Its effects can influence weather patterns worldwide,” explained Dr Seid.
This prediction coincides with one released in October by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which shows a 95 per cent chance of El Nino from December this year to February 2024. Eunice Koech, a climate scientist at ICPAC, explained that an El Niño, which is linked to a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, is the reason for the higher-than-usual rainfall.
“Rains in our regions are connected to what happens in our oceans. The oceans keep warming and cooling, but at the moment they are warming. When the oceans warm, they tend to cause enhanced rainfall in our region. This is happening in the Indian and Pacific Oceans,” she explained.
She added that convectional rainfall, which occurs when the surface of the earth is heated by the sun, causing air to rise and eventually condense as rainfall, also contributes to enhanced rainfall.
“What we need to know is that although the warming in the ocean is already at the threshold that now leads to the El Niño phenomenon, we still have the atmosphere that should also show a positive correlation. For this to happen, the direction of the winds should be towards our region from the Pacific and away from our region from the Indian Ocean. A combination of these two will have an impact on the rainfall,” she added.
Eunice said that should the prediction come to pass, it would mark progress in depreciating the drought impacts. “We should remember that coming off the impacts takes some time since a lot of destruction has already happened. But in terms of meteorological drought, that is the deficiency of rainfall, we will minimise that,” she added.
Dr Guleid Artan, ICPAC director, said the El Niño onset has two sides of the coin, one which is positive and another negative.
“After years of devastating drought, this may be seen as a blessing for farmers. Still, it can quickly become a curse. Desert locusts are already proliferating to alarming levels in parts of the region. The risk of deadly incidents also increases significantly,” he said
“We all remember the last El Niño in 2015/16 when downpours of torrential rains caused landslides, flash floods and buildings to collapse. Governments and disaster management agencies are advised to take all necessary measures to save lives and livelihoods,” he added. In the country, the worst El Niño happened 26 years ago, devastatingly impacting lives and livelihoods.
“The 1997-98 El Niño was blamed for almost all the problems that individuals, groups and the Kenyan population as a whole were facing, be they the worsening national economy, social ills and diseases, retarded national development or even domestic hardships,” shows a paper published by researchers from the University of Nairobi.
“The resultant floods had wide-ranging positive and negative impacts on various sectors of the national economy. The sectors identified to have been seriously affected were agriculture, water resources, transport and communications and health,” they added.
On the contrary, some parts of south-western Uganda and south-western South Sudan will experience drier-than-usual conditions during the same period. There is also a likelihood that an average or delayed onset of rainfall in some parts of northern Somalia, western Kenya, Uganda, southern South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, and north-western Tanzania will be witnessed.
