El Nino phenomenon to die out by mid-year
Geneva (AFP) March 30, 2010
Weather experts said Tuesday that El Nino, the weather anomaly that wrecks havoc around the Pacific and east Africa, has peaked and would disappear by mid-year.
"The most likely outcome by mid-year 2010 is for the El Nino event to have decayed and near-neutral conditions to be re-established across the tropical Pacific," said the World Meteorological Organisation expert Rupa Koumar Kolli. El Nino is an occasional seasonal warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean that upsets normal weather patterns from the western seaboard of Latin America to east Africa.
According to the UN weather agency, the climate phenomenon may have peaked in November or December.
However, its effects should still be felt through April to June.
"This is because impacts on many climate patterns both close to and remote from the Pacific, can occur even during the decay phase of an El Nino event."
Kolli said that this year's El Nino had a major impact in extreme climate events such as monsoons in southeast Asia and drought in southern Australia.
In February, the Philippines warned that its farming industry could lose about 433 million dollars due to a drought caused by El Nino.
Meanwhile in the Americas, El Nino was blamed for blizzards in the United States, heatwaves in Brazil, killer floods in Mexico and drought in Ecuador which occurred in February.
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El Nino, La Nina and an Ocean called Pacifica
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 22, 2010
El Nino 2009-2010 just keeps hanging in there. Recent sea-level height data from the NASA/European Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 oceanography satellite show that a large-scale, sustained weakening of trade winds in the western and central equatorial Pacific during late-January through February has triggered yet another strong, eastward-moving wave of warm water, known as a Kelvin wave ... read more
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