World battens down for the return of El Nino

Governments around the Asia-Pacific region are preparing for the return of El Nino, the mysterious climatic phenomenon that caused devastating floods, forest fires, smog and famines across the world four years ago.

Climate scientists in several countries are predicting the return of El Nino after detecting its earliest signs, a tell-tale warming of the Pacific Ocean. If the warming continues over the next two months, then this autumn could see a repeat of the disasters that brought suffering to millions of people in 1997 and early 1998.

Already, satellite photographs have revealed several forest fires burning on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. A limited number of fires occur every year, but they do not usually begin until later in April, suggesting that El Nino may already be having an effect.

The Indonesian government is making plans to import rice in anticipation of a drought like the one that devastated agriculture in 1997. "All sectors must establish plans to avoid possible calamities, from forest fires to decreasing fish production and farm crops," said Dr Paulus Agus Winarso, from Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.

The 1997 El Nino was the worst on record, perhaps the worst in history, and its diverse effects are still being felt today. In the coral atolls of Kiribati in the eastern Pacific, torrential rains swept away solid cover and killed the living reefs. Across south-east Asia, there was an extended drought. Coffee, cocoa, sugar, rubber, oil palm and rice crops failed. There were food shortages across south-east Asia and an outright famine in Papua New Guinea.

The unusual dryness led to vast forest fires in Sumatra and Borneo. When the smoke generated by these drifted over the densely populated cities of Malaysia and Singapore, it caused respiratory problems for millions of people and forced the closure of schools, public offices and airports.

In Borneo orang-utans, proboscis monkeys and other protected species were driven from their jungle habitats. Traffic accidents, maritime collisions and at least one plane crash were blamed on the smog, and a state of emergency was declared in several Malaysian and Indonesian cities.

The fires alone burnt 10 million hectares of land in Sumatra and Borneo, and the cost of the catastrophe is incalculable. As well as the physical damage, the hotel and holiday trade was affected because businessmen and tourists stayed away. William Kininmouth of the United Nations World Meteorological Organisation said: "When an El Nino comes, it generally brings drought conditions in Indonesia, also in neighbouring countries such as the Philippines, along the Malay peninsula and in Vietnam.

"In some El Nino events the impact spreads as far north as China and also to the west as far as India." At the Kyoto Climate Conference in December 1997, some scientist suggested El Nino had even contributed to that summer's floods in Germany.

Leoncio Amadore, director of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, said: "There are now more numerical computer models which agree that there will be warming towards the end of the year.

"Of the nine models, five show we will again experience warming. Before, we only had two to three models confirming this, while the rest were neutral."

So far the projections suggest that a new El Nino would be weaker than that of 1997, but the phenomenon is by its nature unpredictable. Mr Kininmouth says: "One of the things about El Nino is that it comes as a surprise. We don't know until it starts to evolve."

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