The effects of the huge El Niño of the 1990s were all the worse because cautious forecasts didn’t allow people to prepare. It shouldn’t happen again
IN JANUARY, climate researchers warned that extreme El Niño events are likely to become more common as the planet warms. It now seems that the world will have a chance to rehearse for the future as early as the end of this year. A major El Niño is massing in the Pacific Ocean and is likely to cause cyclones, tornadoes, droughts, floods and sea level changes across the world (see "World is unprepared for major El Niño later this year").
Many leading scientists say the approaching El Niño looks similar in magnitude to the huge one that started in 1997 and went on to kill tens of thousands of people and cause tens of billions of dollars of damage. But you won't hear that sort of warning from official forecasters. They agree that an El Niño is likely, but are saying little about its potential strength.
Why is that? One of the key reasons for the devastation of 1997 was excess caution among forecasters. A major UN study published in 2000 revealed that for forecasters, an incorrect prediction is more embarrassing than no prediction at all. We may be seeing the same failings today.
There is still a chance that the threat will dissipate. But we won't know for sure until it is too late to prepare properly. If governments and emergency services are to be given enough time, they need full and frank forecasts now.
Clear forecasting is important for another reason: the response to a big El Niño will be a test of how ready the world is for climate change. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reiterated that we must prepare for climate variability rather than for any particular threat. El Niño is the biggest source of climate variability we know about.
Should emergency plans be triggered now? That is a call for governments to make, weighing up the cost of preparing for an event that may not happen with the risk of not doing enough. But without clear and honest forecasts, those decisions cannot be made at all. Forecasters ought to be just as embarrassed about no prediction as they would be about a wrong one.
This article appeared in print under the headline "Storm warnings needed"
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