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What you need to know about El Nino? · Drive with John Perlman

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: You're with John Pullman on 702. Let's walk the talk.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Well, today I think has been very, very hot. Quite
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: a few people have remarked on it. My understanding of
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: what's coming down the line this summer is it's going
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: to get a lot hotter. It's going to get a
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: lot drier. This is the tough, strong El Nino that
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: we've been warned about. And we are heading into that phase,
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: unlikely to see the other side of it. I would
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: have thought between now and May, we're going to have
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: to endure some difficult times. Are there things, though, that
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: we as a country can do to try and mitigate it?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Some of them could be government initiatives. But let's get
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  Speaker 2: a large perspective on this. And welcome to the show,
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  Speaker 2: Professor Willem Lundman. He is meteorologist at the University of
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Pretoria and specializes in seasonal climate prediction in southern Africa.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Prof Lundman, welcome and thanks very much for giving us
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  Speaker 2: your time. I suppose one of the complexities of looking
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: at what agriculture might do is on the one hand,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: we've got organized agriculture that despite how tough that is,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: they do have some room. They do perhaps have access
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  Speaker 2: to dams that are fuller. And then there's subsistence agriculture
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  Speaker 2: where people actually plant food so they can live and
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  Speaker 2: they don't have any wriggle room at all. Let's start
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: with the latter and ask you how we help those
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  Speaker 2: people out.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Well, you have definitely touched on something that is very true.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I think the biggest threat coming from this El Nino,
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  Speaker 3: and by the way, we're not waiting for El Nino
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  Speaker 3: to come. It is here. It's actually just warming up
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  Speaker 3: a little bit more. So it's going to be here
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: for the duration of summer. And so we expect that
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  Speaker 3: it's going to influence the rainfall for the whole of
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: the summer period. And coming back to your question, I
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: think that's the biggest problem that I also have. I'm
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: not a a person who does anything other than modeling.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: I'm just worried also that what happens to those guys
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: who don't have, like you said, any real room? They
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: are in trouble. Yeah. And so I think government has to, like,
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: step in. And how do they step in? And I've
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: been thinking about this too, and I... And I think
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  Speaker 3: maybe we can look back at the El Nino seasons
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  Speaker 3: we've had in the past, but it was actually quite dry.
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  Speaker 3: For example, in 2018-19 or 23-24 when we actually had
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: quite dry summers. So what happened? What did the government
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: do then? And whatever they did, did that work? And
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: maybe the next question is, had they known during those
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: two years that there's going to be a significant drought,
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: what would they have liked to have done? And so
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  Speaker 3: maybe we can go back in the relatively recent past
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  Speaker 3: and see how did South Africa handle the two El
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Nino events prior to this one. Maybe that will teach
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  Speaker 3: us some lessons on how to act on this one.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: I want to take a step back and maybe just,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: you know, I might need to correct myself or more
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  Speaker 2: pertinently have you steer us right. I've been saying, Prof Landmann,
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  Speaker 2: this is a particularly bad El Nino.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Some are saying one of the worst.
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  Speaker 2: Is that a statistical measure?
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  Speaker 1: Tell us why we say that if indeed it's correct.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so first of all, we measure, one of the
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  Speaker 3: things we measure El Nino by is is how hot
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  Speaker 3: it gets in this central Pacific Ocean area on the equator.
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  Speaker 3: And so when we get to look at past events,
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  Speaker 3: this current event is already at the level of our
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  Speaker 3: strongest one over the past 50 years. And so it's
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: expected to warm up a little bit more. This is
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  Speaker 3: what we see from our models. And our models predicting
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  Speaker 3: this event, when it has started to go, are very,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: very good. So there's 100% certainty that this thing will
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  Speaker 3: even get a little bit stronger. And when this thing
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: is as strong as it is and already expected to
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: be a bit stronger, it definitely shifts the likelihood of
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  Speaker 3: this being a drier season than otherwise. So I think
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  Speaker 3: there's an enormous confidence in this forecast of even a
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: stronger wind that will last the whole of the summer.
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  Speaker 3: And there's also some confidence that it will actually cause
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  Speaker 3: problems for agriculture because it won't be raining so much.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: I want to ask whether we have anything in reserve. Obviously,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: dams is something we can see and we know what
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  Speaker 2: dam levels are like. And the point is well taken
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  Speaker 2: that that doesn't necessarily reach subsistence farmers. What about groundwater?
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  Speaker 2: If we've had good rain over a period, do we
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  Speaker 2: have anything in reserve in that regard? And if so,
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  Speaker 2: how much?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so the past season wasn't all that dry, so
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  Speaker 3: that might be a possibility. But I think for that
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  Speaker 3: kind of question, you may have to ask somebody that's
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  Speaker 3: an agronomist, not me as a climate modeler. But I
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  Speaker 3: can imagine it's not so bad because the past two
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  Speaker 3: seasons of a large part of the summer rainfall region
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  Speaker 3: wasn't that bad. We had actually quite a bit of
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  Speaker 3: a dry season in 23, 24, but the two years
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: after that, it wasn't all that bad. So maybe it's
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  Speaker 3: not so big of a problem then. what we may expect.
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  Speaker 3: But I don't know if that's going to really help
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  Speaker 3: much because the other problem that we have is the
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  Speaker 3: expected high temperatures.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: And so these temperatures are brought about by the current
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  Speaker 3: El Nino event and the undeniable fact that we are
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  Speaker 3: in a changing climate and this changing climate has caused
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: temperatures to rise gradually. And so I've just been speaking
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  Speaker 3: to one of my esteemed colleagues on I'm working on
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: climate change with my friend from WITS, Professor Frans van Engelbrecht.
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  Speaker 3: And he and I did a paper a couple of
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: years back where we looked at crop yields and the
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: changing climate where we look at low mitigation. That means
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: we continue business as usual. We decol, for example. And
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  Speaker 3: so by the end of the century, the temperatures may
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  Speaker 3: rise on average by as much as four degrees Celsius, right?
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  Speaker 3: And the expectation for this season, it could be between
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: two and three degrees Celsius already. So this season could
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  Speaker 3: be a typical season that we may find during a
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  Speaker 3: season that's typical of a climate change scenario that will
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: have big impact towards the end of the century. So
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  Speaker 3: this is something that really concerns me. This could be
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  Speaker 3: a case that we have a real climate change impact too.
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  Speaker 1: So I want to understand this, Prof.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, sometimes if you're planning on what to do
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  Speaker 2: for something, a specific cycle like this summer, your planning
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  Speaker 2: may well be shaped as to whether you expect it
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  Speaker 2: to recur.
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  Speaker 1: Are we able to say.
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  Speaker 2: Whether we will have this again in the summer of 2017? because,
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  Speaker 2: you know, there's short-term mitigation and then there's longer-term planning
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: for something that you're expecting to happen regularly. Which of
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  Speaker 2: those two should we be contemplating?
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe that will be best answered if I go
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: back to what I said previously. I think it would
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: be wise to go and look what happened in the
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: recent El Nino events that we just had. I think
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: that will tell us a lot about how we behaved,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: what we did, Maybe what we did wrong. And maybe
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  Speaker 3: don't do those mistakes again this season. I think from
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: a plant modelist perspective, I can only kind of guess
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: what I should tell the government what to do. But
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  Speaker 3: I would definitely tell them, listen, you've got to focus
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  Speaker 3: on the subsistence farmers. Because those guys have, like you
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  Speaker 3: said before, they have very little regal room. They don't plant,
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  Speaker 3: they don't eat. And so what do we do about
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  Speaker 3: this problem? And we have problems with... The social problems
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  Speaker 3: can result as a consequence of low rain and high heat.
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  Speaker 2: We can't... You're just losing him right at the end,
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  Speaker 2: but I think we've got plenty for us to think about.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Professor Willem Lundman. Joining us from University of Pretoria,
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  Speaker 2: he's a meteorologist at UP, and he specializes... in seasonal
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  Speaker 2: climate prediction focusing on the southern African region.
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  Speaker 1: It's alarming.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, this has implications for absolutely everything. Energy use,
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  Speaker 2: arguably migration and immigration policy. I can't think of an
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  Speaker 2: area of life that won't be touched by what it
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  Speaker 2: is we may well be faced with this summer.