The Council for Scientific Industrial and Research (CSIR), in partnership with project partners, hosted the first scientific briefing about the possible negative impact of the looming El Niño anticipated later this year. Held at the University of Pretoria, the convention provided platform for a panel of climate experts to share technical and impact information with representatives of the business community and various key players including government entities.
Animated discussions
The purpose of sharing this vital information is to increase awareness – without creating alarm – about the impact of global weather patterns related to the El Niño and La Niña events. The gathering took place against the backdrop of El Niño events currently sweeping across most countries situated in the Pacific Ocean region. The hybrid event drew 300 participants who actively engaged in discussions about the past, present and future El Niño events and their potential effects on the economy, health and livelihoods in the region.
What is El Niño and La Niña events?
The two phenomena are explained as fluctuating and recurring opposite ocean-atmosphere phases of the state of the oceans in the Pacific Ocean – collectively referred to as ENSO) – and are defined by the distribution of the warmer or cooler sea surface temperatures. These periodically reach thresholds at which point either El Niño and La Niña seasonal event is declared. The scale and the extent of both these phases can affect global atmospheric circulation patterns and can affect seasonal weather across the globe.
High-powered panellists
CSIR’s senior researcher in the holistic climate change impact area and director of the ACCESS programme, Dr Neville Sweijd, facilitated the lively and insightful discussions. He was ably assisted by other experts who included:
- Professor Willem Landman from the University of Pretoria
- Drs Johan Malherbe and Mokhele Moeletsi from the Agricultural Research Council
- Christien Engelbrecht and Katlego Ncongwane from the South African Weather Service
- Peter Johnston from the University of Cape Town, and
- Dechlan Pillay from the National Disaster Management Centre.
Rising ocean temperatures
The experts also shared data on the relationship between EL Niño and extreme weather events in South Africa. They further observed that a moderate-to-strong El Niño is currently developing. This is in addition to the concern that ocean temperatures have been rising significantly with new records being breached almost every year in the last decade. For instance, available data shows that May and June 2023 had the highest sea surface temperatures ever recorded in these months, to date.
Explaining the ENSO phenomenon
There was also focus on explaining the science behind phenomena such as the ENSO and providing historical overview of its impact in relation to rainfall and temperature in southern Africa. This was followed by an interactive panel discussion on the impactful 2015/16 El Niño and how it affected response to agriculture, health, water supply and disaster. There was also engagement on the response structures and policies that have been put in place and which are designed to intervene in the event that El Niño strikes later this year.
In addition, there was also information sharing on plans and awareness of the weather that is expected during this year’s summer rainfall season in parts of the country. Participants also noted that not every El Niño and its impact on southern Africa are the same and this makes forecasting at this time scale (period of months away) very challenging. For instance, in the past weak ENSO events had severe impacts while strong ENSO events had less impact.
Substantially hotter and dryer summer
The team of experts who were part of the summit expressed concern that this year’s El Niño weather system could lead to a substantially hotter and dryer summer later this year. Seasonal climate prediction expert, Professor Landman noted that, “We can predict the La Niña impacts more confidently than the impact of the El Niño.” The next gathering of climate experts is scheduled for September this year when more information about this year’s El Niño event and more data on the climate trends are available in the region.
