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Scientists Predict El Nino in 2020 Based on Earlier Warning Method

Reuters

   BARCELONA - The complex El Nino weather pattern that can bring
   disastrous heavy rainfall and long droughts to countries around the
   Pacific -- from Peru to Indonesia and Australia -- will probably emerge
   again in 2020, researchers have predicted.

   An international team of scientists forecast an 80% chance next year of
   an El Nino, which occurs when sea-surface temperatures rise
   substantially above normal in the east-central Equatorial Pacific.

   This week they said their model -- which uses an algorithm that draws
   on analysis of links between changing air temperatures at a network of
   grid points across the Pacific region -- could predict an El Nino at
   least a year ahead.

   "Conventional methods are unable to make a reliable 'El Nino' forecast
   more than six months in advance. With our method, we have roughly
   doubled the previous warning time," said co-developer Armin Bunde, a
   physicist at Germany's Justus Liebig University Giessen.

   The term El Nino, meaning "boy child" in Spanish, was first used in the
   19th century by fishermen in Peru and Ecuador to refer to the unusually
   warm waters that reduced their catch just before Christmas, according
   to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

   The phenomenon occurs every two to seven years and typically lasts for
   9 to 12 months, often beginning mid-year and peaking between November
   and January.

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