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Discovery

El Nino

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.31.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Floods in South America, fires in Indonesia, famine threatened in Ethiopia, yet more drought in Southern Africa and central America. Plus, a stunning peak in global temperatures for 2015. The current El Nino, just past its peak, has a lot to answer for. Roland Pease talks to the experts who forecast, track and analyse the events in the Pacific Ocean associated with this powerful climate phenomenon. And seeks answers to some burning questions.

(Photo: Indonesia forest fire burning, 2015. Credit: Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0

Thank you for downloading from the BBC.

0:03.0

The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use,

0:07.0

go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts.

0:10.0

Elinio, the biggest climate... broadcasts.

0:18.0

Elinio, the biggest climate event on the planet is here, and it's making news. Ethiopia is experiencing its worst drought in decades, with more than 10 million people needing emergency aid.

0:24.8

The farmer lets the dry earth slip through his fingers.

0:27.8

My name Ahmed, no Ahmed.

0:29.6

That's head to Venezuela now where many shopping centers in the capital Caracas say they will be having

0:33.4

their opening times to four hours a day after the government announced that they'd be rationing

0:38.0

energy supplies. The government says that a drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon has brought the country's hydroelectric dams

0:45.0

to critically low water levels.

0:47.0

I'm Roland Pease and on this edition of Discovery I'll be looking at the science of Elinio and the

0:51.8

disastrous effects it can have.

0:54.0

Really only one way to describe it was something like an old picture of Duntes Inferno.

0:59.7

I think that 2016 is going to be a particularly bad year for food security and I think the

1:06.2

El Nino of 2015 is the major driver.

1:09.8

Because the big ones are only once in a generation and the signal is so strong from a

1:15.1

scientific point of view it's very exciting. No two El Nino's are exactly alike

1:20.4

and with each one you learn something new.

1:23.0

El-Menio is the single biggest driver of global climate when it shows up and in recent weeks

1:29.3

it has rarely been out of the news. Its beating heart is in the center of the Pacific Ocean, remote

1:35.7

from much of the world, but its effect stretch out across the planet.

...

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