El Nino Special

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2016

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

El Niño is releasing vast quantities of heat normally stored in the Pacific, causing floods, droughts and fires. Adam Rutherford discusses the latest with our El Niño expert Roland Pease.

This weather event arrives every 2-7 years but it's hard to work out how profound it will be. Back in May last year, the Met Office climate scientist Adam Scaife correctly predicted an El Niño. He returns to give an overview of this phenomenon.

How does an altered weather pattern in the Pacific end up altering the weather in Cumbria. Tim Stockdale at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and Richard Allan at Reading University explain the science behind the current events.

The rains are coming to drought-ridden California as a result of El Niño. Jack Stewart explains why this is not entirely a good thing.

Professor Sue Page from Leicester University and Professor Martin Wooster from KCL study the Indonesian fires exacerbated by an El Niño event. They describe the devastating effects of these fires. An estimated 15,000 death can be attributed to the previous El Niño burning and it has added 300 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello you this is the podcast the very first of 2016 of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4
0:06.2	this one first broadcast on the 7th of January and I'm your host Adam Rutherford
0:10.8	more information can be found at BBC.co.
0:13.5	UK slash Radio 4.
0:15.0	It's the first of the year and will be bringing you all of the best new science and
0:19.7	engineering as normal throughout 2016. But as far as weather and climate it's been a dramatic start
0:26.2	to the year and today we're dedicating the program to El Nino, that Pacific Ocean climate
0:31.4	anomaly that periodically seriously disrupt
0:34.4	local weather systems and has profound impact on local economies and health and
0:39.1	famine and increasingly is affecting us all. We'll be hearing from scientists and correspondence from around the globe
0:45.2	and back home and trying to get to the bottom of whether this phenomenon is behind
0:49.4	the devastating floods in the north of the UK. El Nino arrives every two to seven years,
0:55.0	so he can hazard a pretty good prediction that one is coming,
0:58.0	but it's hard to work out how profound it will be.
1:01.0	The weather pattern emerges in the mid-Pacific, but its effects are
1:04.8	felt far and wide. Back in May last year, the Met Office Climate Scientist Adam Scaife predicted
1:10.3	an Al-Nino. Well, he was right. and he's back with us on Inside Science today.
1:15.0	Normally it's warm in the West Pacific and cooler in the East next to South America
1:20.0	and this pulls in air from the East, the so-called trade winds,
1:24.0	which return in the upper atmosphere, sort of like a closed loop.
1:27.0	Now, Adam, that's the normal Pacific.
1:29.0	What happens when an El Nino-Nino strikes?
	...

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