Inside Science - Radio4 21.v.2015

[charmbrights]

The first item in this program was described as:

El Niño is a weather event that happens every 5 years. It leaves Europe largely unscathed but causes havoc around the southern hemisphere. El Nino causes droughts, floods and has even been linked to an increased incidence of war. And yet it is surprisingly hard to predict. Adam speaks to Professor Adam Scaife, from the Met Office, about unpicking the science from weather chaos.

In fact the period between occurrences varies from two to seven years.

Naturally (for the BBC) an increase of the frequency of El Niño (of which there is NO long term evidence) has been caused by "global warming" or "climate change". To be fair to Professor Scaife he did say that he was not sure that this causality had been established, but the whole emphasis of the programme was that the link was undisputed.

[Teddy Bear]

May 22, 2015 11:48:12 GMT charmbrights said:

and has even been linked to an increased incidence of war

Says it all about the bullshit produced by the BBC to promote their agenda.
El Nincompoops

[charmbrights]

May 22, 2015 17:49:47 GMT Teddy Bear said:

May 22, 2015 11:48:12 GMT charmbrights said:

and has even been linked to an increased incidence of war

Says it all about the bullshit produced by the BBC to promote their agenda.
El Nincompoops

Actually it is an observable link and they are right (for once) as a starving people due to crop failure will attack more fortunate neighbours to steal their food. If the army is used to do the attacking then that is war, I think.

[Teddy Bear]

I note several articles were produced around the same time when this study came out. The Guardian, as an example, report the link as fact. However reading this article from the Washington Post. they are more careful with their claims.

El Niño weather events are linked with civil wars in tropical countries
By Darryl Fears August 24, 2011

El Niño weather conditions cause torrential downpours and crop-killing droughts in the United States, but a study released Wednesday theorizes that this hot-climate cycle can contribute to far deadlier outcomes in parts of the developing world.

The study published in the journal Nature said the probability that new civil wars will break out in 90 tropical countries such as Burma and Colombia doubles in years when El Niño Southern Oscillation arms the climate, compared with cooler La Niña years.

The study “raises potent questions” about the impact of weather cycles as the climate warms, the authors said.

“We can speculate that a long-ago Egyptian dynasty was overthrown during a drought. That’s a specific time and place . . . so people might say, ‘OK, we’re immune to that now,’ ” said Solomon M. Hsiang, a graduate of Columbia University’s Earth Institute doctorate program in sustainable development and the study’s lead author. “This study shows a systematic pattern of global climate affecting conflict and shows it right now.”

El Niño Southern Oscillations are huge climate events that happen every four to seven years. They occur when powerful trade winds in the Pacific push deep cold water down and move hotter surface water atop it. The cool winds weaken, making the water even warmer.

The climate heats up, producing heavy rain in some areas and droughts in others. The conditions ruin agriculture, the main source of income in poor tropical nations. The most recent El Niño was 2009, and one of the most powerful occurred in 1997 and 1998. A strong El Niño can last more than a year.

Authors of the study stopped short of claiming that El Niño can ignite wars, asserting instead that it can be a major contributing factor, along with economic strife and competing political and religious ideologies that split nations.

A critic, Halvard Buhaug, a senior researcher at the Centre for the Study of Civil War in Oslo, dismissed the study, saying it fails to clearly show how El Niño drives governments and their opponents to civil war.

“It would boost the credibility of the claim if a proper theory were developed, pointing to specific causal mechanisms linking warming of the . . . Pacific with civil war outbreak,” Buhaug said. “These are obvious challenges for future research. For now, I find it advisable to exercise restraint in embracing the notion of a causal El Niño-civil war connection.”

Hsiang said Buhaug is right — there are no specific examples in the study.