Water, water everywhere

...and the trouble is, it's not flat  The trade winds make it pile up on one side of the planet, and when the trade winds vary - as they do, largely unpredictàbly - the water slooshes back and forth, with earth-shattering consequences.

This is el Niño,  officially known as 'El Niño Southern Oscillation' (ENSO).

<bon-ish_mot critique="It doesn't really work, does it?">

With its sister la Niña (the same, but with polarities reversed).

should the terrible twins be known together as the SOENSO?
<bon-ish_mot>

A June 8 BBC explanation says

The phenomenon was first observed by Peruvian fisherman in the 1600s, who noticed that warm waters seemed to peak near the Americas in December.

They nicknamed the event "El Niño de Navidad", Christ Child in Spanish.

And Advent has started early this year: the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced the beginning of the latest El Niño in June 2023:

A seven month Advent. One tries ones best to be a glass-half-full sort of person, but - as some wag on the radio last week put it - it's half full of  economy cava rather than champagne.

If that explanation is not enough, I recommend the edition of The Climate Question, devoted specifically to El Niño, which starts off from some mysterious structures criss-crossing the Pampa de Mocan. These were pre-hispanic earthworks, investigated by the Proyecto Arqueo-Ambiental de la Pampa de Mocan

The north coast of Peru is a relatively flat area, with rivers running across it from the Andes mountains down to the Pacific Ocean, making it susceptible to extreme flooding during El Niño. However, using a flexible irrigation system, ancient farmers in the Pampa de Mocan were able to prepare for these sudden floodwaters and use them for agricultural production. Canals were constructed in the area from the Early Horizon Period (1100 BC) up to the Late Intermediate Period (c.AD 1460). These canals had multiple functions, carrying river water at some points in their use-lives and diverting floodwater at others, followed by a third life as agricultural fields once they were no longer used to channel water.

Discussions about the management of natural disasters are especially relevant in the present day, with most modern strategies focused on predicting and detecting events and mitigating their effects. The research from the Pampa de Mocan reveals that pre-Hispanic farmers in this region had a different approach, using opportunistic agricultural techniques to turn El Niño from a catastrophe into an advantage, and allowing them to utilise the Pampa de Mocan as both a productive agricultural area and a risk-management strategy.

PAAPM article

<anachronism_alert>

As these irrigation ditches were pre-hispanic, how did they know it was called El Niño? Some kind of miracle, I reckon.

</anachronism_alert>

 The Mochica civilisation, which built and/or maintained these irrigation ditches during the first millennium CE (I say 'and/or' because the archeologists of PAAPM haven't ruled out the possibility that they were dug in pre-Moche times) were eventually wiped out by a 'Super El Niño'. But, as that El Niño programme observes, they did a lot better with a few hand-tools (not sure whether they had technology as advanced as a wheelbarrow) than current Peruvian authorities.

And for some more glass-half-full stuff have a listen to the latest edition of The Climate Question, featuring an extended interview with the new chairman of the IPCC...

<newspeak_alert>

They're so right-on on that programme that they call him 'the new chair'. I suppose someone who speaks for the agency would be a spoke. I know there are issues with the male-bias of the language, but this sort of '-man' is just an undefined  person (German man) as opposed to a man (German Mann). And in any case Professor Jim Skea is one of us poor chromosomatically challenged caitiffs.
</newspeak_alert>

..., who you will be relieved to hear, has his fingers crossed as to whether governments are going to meet their net-zero goals.

That's all for now.

b

Update 2023.12.29.12:00 – Added PS

PS A few months after  I published this, an article in  The Conversation, added to the picture, with particular reference to fresh water:

It is a well-known fact that water is the key to life on Earth. But it is less well known that only about 1% of all water on the planet is fresh water available to humans, plants or land-based animals.

The rest is in the oceans, or locked up in polar ice sheets and rocks. In a climate changing world, the global distribution of that 1% takes on a whole new significance.

 It went on to give specific information about the effects of El Niño in Australia (and in the the southern hemisphere generally (in unquoted bits of the article):

...Drying will change vegetation patterns and further increase temperatures, which could be above 35°C for large parts of the year by 2100 if emission rates continue to be high. This would have severe effects on the health of humans and habitats.

Similarly, drying in central Australia has knock-on effects on weather and climate for coastal areas where most of Australia’s major cities and population are situated. Drying trends are also being experienced in the south-west and south-east of the country leading to habitat stresses and change, wildfires, depleted rivers and impacts on human health, especially in urban areas.

As with many aspects of climate, the exact nature and scale of changes and impacts are hard to predict or model at local or regional scales. But this new paper points to clear shifts in patterns and complex climate processes in the southern hemisphere which will reduce water availability during El Niño events.

Drying will generate additional stresses on habitats and species in key regions. It will also impact human populations with varying capacities to adapt and, ultimately, our global food systems. Although the southern hemisphere is mostly water, what happens there really matters for the whole planet.