This study examined how three Pacific Rim countries issued early warning alerts associated with El Nino, the warm phase of the climate cycle, El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The El Nino influences hydrometeorological (hydromet) hazards and disaster risk. While many studies focused on the physics and impacts of El Nino, less explored is the quantitative definition and how this influences early warning systems (EWS). Evidence of conflicting definitions creates confusion affecting how El Nino is detected, hindering warning usability, communication and preparedness. Moreover, a definition problem raises questions about climate justice and DRR. To address this gap, we conducted desktop reviews of bulletins from national hydromet agencies across Australia, Peru, and the U.S., key countries of varying impacts, to compare definitions of El Nino and La Nina (ENSO's cold phase) and patterns of alerts from 2017 to 2024. We find that La Nina-related alerts were most frequent in Australia and the U.S., while Peru issued more El Nino-related alerts. Importantly, we show that while the most common warnings between Peru and the U.S. were El Nino-related, these countries also issued conflicting alerts which occurred during significant El Ninos, providing evidence of a potential definition problem. We conclude with implications for anticipatory action DRR as well as climate justice.

Given the contemporary increase in the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme anomalous hydromet hazards (droughts, floods, tropical storms, heatwaves), heightened attention of governments, scientists, media, and humanitarian organizations is being given to hydromet early warning systems. The focus of this article is multidisciplinary and multifaceted: it involves connecting an earliest warning indicator associated with the Oceanic Niño Index, one that complements the existing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicator, with early warning early action and anticipatory action approaches for disaster risk reduction (DRR). This new indicator in theory at least could increase the lead time between the release of an official forecast of an El Niño and the first appearance of its adverse impacts, thereby serving as the earliest warning of an event. As such, this DRR research links new usable earliest warning information, providing additional time to initiate tactical actions to cope with El Niño-spawned hydromet hazards. Integrating an earliest indicator of the likely onset of an El Niño into early action frameworks would hasten humanitarian assistance by providing at-risk communities and humanitarian organizations with more time to consider a range of options for responding to El Niño’s impacts.

The Arctic is undergoing an unprecedented transformation in recorded history as a result, of anthropogenic climate change. This reality surprisingly compares in some respects with the speculative geoengineering ambitions imagined by Jules Verne in his 1889 novel, The Purchase of the North Pole. Verne’s science fictional premise was a deliberate effort to melt the frozen ice-covered Arctic region for industrial profit. This premise mirrors today’s accelerated rate of the melting of Arctic sea ice, which is primarily linked to a worldwide dependence on fossil fuel in their drive for economic development of their own country. Here, we briefly track the historical trajectory of the temperature of the atmosphere, the political inertia surrounding UNFCCC’s COP (Conference of Parties) attempts to limit if not reduce greenhouse gas emissions from various sources, and the foreseeable geopolitical constraints on international climate crisis negotiations to curb global warming. We also note the implications of various proposed geoengineering schemes for altering the existing global climate regime to counteract the adverse consequences of a foreseeable runaway global warming. It is not unreasonable to view the Arctic region’s loss of sea ice as a proverbial «canary in the coal mine», which means providing a stark warning of an impending disaster and in this case of global proportion. Although past generations have ignored earlier science-based signs of a possible continued atmospheric warming, societies today face an already critically narrowed window of opportunity to act to prevent its potentially irreversible adverse consequences.

In this article we propose that all countries that are striving to become a Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) would benefit greatly from including El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-related research findings into their decision-making processes, not only when an El Niño or a La Niña forecast has been issued quasi-periodically. For an aspiring WRN, to benefit from ENSO information, such as disruptive or beneficial changes that could be foreseeably expected to occur in seasonal flow and in sub-seasonal hydrometeorological anomalies, requires its continuous mainstreaming about the status of the ENSO process into a WRN’s decision-making activities. The ENSO process provides a bridge between sub-seasonal weather anomalies and a sub-decadal climate phenomenon as well as a bridge between coping with weather extremes today and preparing for climate change-related hydrometeorological hazards in the future. ENSO extremes every few years provide a chance to evaluate a nation’s strategic and tactical responses to hydrometeorological hazard forecasts and disasters. Each successive ENSO extreme and its Neutral phase tests previously designed best practices. Involvement of today’s youth and young professionals on climate, water, and weather issues has been increasing and will do so in coming decades. Shifting awareness and attention to ENSO and away from ENSO extremes is crucial. The heightened urgency for understanding the full ENSO “cycle” especially by youth and young professionals today is because they will soon be in professional positions that enable them to advise decision makers about climate policy issues. Their understanding of the ENSO cycle is critically needed, as global warming is expected to continue to increase for the rest of the twenty-first century.

Current discussions of the social phenomenon of “vaccine hesitancy” with regard to Covid-19 provide an opportunity to use hesitancy as a means to shift thinking about untimely and delayed responses to forecasts of hydrometeorological hazards. Hesitancy, that is, provides a paradigm through which such regrettably delayed responses to hydromet hazards might be better understood and effectively addressed. Without exaggeration, just about every hydromet event provides an example of how hesitancy hinders individual, community, and national government risk-reducing preventive and mitigative responses to forecasts of foreseeable, relatively near-term climate, water, or weather hazards. Reasons for such hesitancy (for vaccine and forecast use alike) include—among others—lack of trust in the science, lack of confidence in government, and persistent concern about the uncertainties that surround forecasting—both meteorological and public health. As such, a better understanding of the causes that lead to individual and group hesitancy can better inform hydromet forecasters and affected communities about ways in which beneficial actions in response to timely forecasts are often delayed. This better understanding will facilitate, where necessary, targeted interventions to enhance the societal value of forecasting by reducing this long-observed challenge of “forecast hesitancy.” First, this article focuses on incidents of “vaccine hesitancy” that, for various reasons, people around the world are even now experiencing with regard to several now-available, and confirmed efficacious, Covid-19 vaccines. Reports of such incidents of indecisiveness first increased dramatically over the first few months of 2021, despite the strong scientific confidence that vaccination would significantly lower personal risk of contracting as well as spreading the virus. After, the notion of forecast hesitancy with regard to hydrometeorological hazards is discussed. It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear . -Frank Luntz (2007)

NOAA’s Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) is used to record for historical purposes the occurrence and duration of El Niño episodes, based on the monitoring of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the central Pacific Ocean. The ONI is used to identify the onset of an above average SST threshold that persists for several months, encompassing both the beginning and end of an El Niño episode. The first appearance of an anomalous seasonal value of 0.5 °C suggests with a high probability that an El Niño could emerge, but for heightened warnings, one must wait for several months. In this article, we proposed that the ONI value of 0.7 °C identifies a tipping point at which the El Niño event becomes locked in, which can provide additional lead time for mitigative actions to be taken by societal decision makers. Our preliminary findings suggest that a first appearance of 0.7 °C value could serve as a credible marker of El Niño’s locked-in phase, which can provide additional credibility to the current 0.5 °C El Niño onset indicator for at-risk societies to get ready for El Niño’s foreseeable societal and ecological impacts.

Once an El Niño event has been forecast, government warnings and news headlines highlight the need for society to get ready for the potential impacts of the event, whether drought, flood, heatwave, disease outbreak, or water shortage. The notion of readiness for a climate-, water- or weather-related hazard or disaster is a fuzzy term, subject to a wide range of conflicting perceptions. Not every government sees El Niño as a direct threat to the wellbeing of its citizens. In this paper, we conceptualize readiness and identify reasons that some governments do not as well as cannot prepare for El Niño’s foreseeable consequences. Central among those reasons are its characteristics: quasi-periodicity, event variability, difficulties with onset forecasting, and the fact that El Niño and its “teleconnections” are influenced by numerous other oceanic and atmospheric oscillations. As a result, there is no universally accepted approach to or reliable measure of readiness. The concept is often discussed qualitatively in terms of “shades of readiness”, such as hardly ready, somewhat ready, almost ready, and absolutely ready. Although El Niño is still difficult to forecast, the existing knowledge about it can provide usable information for decision makers to choose whether to pursue strategic or tactical disaster risk reduction policies.

iStock/danikancilLibrary shelves are filled with stories about disasters and how to cope and enhance the chance of survival in the face of a wide range of so-called natural hazards. Such hazards in...

The aim of this pilot study conducted by the consortium for capacity building was to develop a prototype concept and methodology for the classification and visualization of the geographic impacts of El Niño on annual climates and seasonality. Our study is based on the Köppen–Geiger climate classification scheme for a set of selected countries affected by strong El Niños in Latin America. By identifying and visualizing the annual and seasonal changes in regional, national, or subnational climate regimes that generally accompany an El Niño event, this research proposes an efficient way to detect and describe climate shifts and variability across time and space. Such knowledge provides a support tool for risk analysis and can potentially enhance government efforts of climate risk management, including disaster risk reduction activities that prevent, mitigate, and improve coping responses to El Niño-related hydrometeorological threats. Details of the conceptual approach and methodology to classifying and mapping El Niño's impacts are described and explained using the Central American and circum-Caribbean region as a case study. The potential applications for disaster risk reduction as well as its limitations and future work are also discussed.

El Nino warm events provide a fruitful case for the study of disaster‐induced learning due to their reoccurring nature and the high level of uncertainty surrounding their impacts. The purpose of this study is to elucidate impediments and opportunities for learning from El Nino disaster planning. To achieve this, we analyse and compare two lessons learned reports from the 1997–98 and 2015–16 El Nino events. These reports also refer to the 1982–83 El Nino event, providing a longer case‐record. The findings suggest that inter‐event learning is facilitated by the existence of at least three key elements: the presence of national research programmes on El Nino mechanics and forecast capability; a development approach to disaster risk reduction, where root causes such as poverty and socio‐economic exclusion are considered, and the availability of media channels that refrain from sensationalist framing in favour of relevant and useful messages regarding appropriate mitigative strategies. Unfavourable learning conditions were identified as those characterized by a lack of political will, reliance on reactive response strategies and a lack of inter‐agency coordination.

The Aral Sea is dead. In 1960 the level of the sea was about 53 m above sea level. By 2015 the level have dropped by 26 m above sea level. Now we have two seas - Large and Small Arals. It was a process of environmental degradation played out in real life primarity as a result of human activities. More than 30 years the Aral Sea problem attracts attention of the scientists and world community.

On 11 March 2011,a massive,shallow earthquake off the east coast of Japan demonstrated the remarkable successes which that country has achieved in earthquake engineering.Building collapses tended to be mainly older structures while comparatively few deaths resulted from the shaking（including from landslides）,illustrating how decades of initiatives and efforts in disaster risk reduction can reduce vulnerability,ensuring that a hazard does not necessarily

The troubled forecast of El Niño's onset in 2014 requires an explanation as well as an open dialogue with the user community that depends on such an important forecast. A review of the forecasts on the Internet reflects two different perceptions about what transpired. The forecast community suggests they got it right, while the popular media suggests forecasters got it wrong. Why such a gap? The major El Niño that was alluded to by several organizations did not materialize when or even as expected. A science-fed media frenzy took place about an event considered in retrospect to have been an unusual borderline (weak) El Niño event, "trickiest ever to forecast." That is understandable, as the science of El Niño is still on a learning curve. But it suggests that the forecasting of El Niño's onset is still in an experimental phase and not yet operational. Forecasting its onset (as a specific event) should be separated from forecasting its behavior and impacts (as a process) once the onset has been assured. Whenever a forecast is made, someone is responding to it. Therefore, such a distinction is necessary for the benefit of those societies and economic sectors affected by El Niño.

In the midst of assessing and critiquing the document produced by the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction（WCDRR）in Sendai,Japan,I came to realize that we tend to focus on the document itself and less so on the good intentions of many of the delegates and other

In the 1990s Peru experienced the first cholera epidemic after almost a century. The source of emergence was initially attributed to a cargo ship, but later there was evidence of an El Niño association. It was hypothesized that marine ecosystem changes associated with El Niño led to the propagation of V. cholerae along the coast of Peru, which in turn initiated the onset of the epidemic in 1991. Earlier studies supported this explanation by demonstrating a relationship between elevated temperatures and increased cholera incidence in Peru; however, other aspects of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and their potential impacts on cholera were not investigated. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between El Niño and cholera in Peru from a holistic view of the ENSO cycle. A “climate affairs” approach is employed as a conceptual framework to incorporate ENSO’s multidimensional nature and to generate new hypotheses about the ENSO and cholera association in Peru. The findings reveal that ENSO may have been linked to the cholera epidemic through multiple pathways, including rainfall extremes, La Niña, and social vulnerability, with impacts depending on the geography of teleconnections within Peru. When the definition of an ENSO event is examined, cholera appears to have emerged either during ENSO neutral or La Niña conditions. Furthermore, the analysis herein suggests that the impact of El Niño arrived much later, possibly resulting in heightened transmission in the austral summer of 1992. In conclusion, a modified hypothesis with these new insights on cholera emergence and transmission in Peru is presented.

This paper investigates biofuels pathways and the potential outcomes of biofuels development for energy security and poverty alleviation in Africa. It also examines various options for biofuels development and its potential roles to improve or undermine the livelihoods of rural communities.

Many educational initiatives, including for higher (post-secondary) education, use various forms of technology. This chapter describes another conceptual as well as practical approach for applying educational technology for delivering higher education knowledge: a Spare Time University (STU). The notion of STU is defined and then applied to climate change education beyond the traditional higher education setting.The history, creation, implementation, and limitations of STU are noted along with illustrative examples and a more detailed example of using STU to communicate local climate change impacts on rural areas. The result is that STU becomes an information exchanger and stimulator, not just an information disseminator, with users encouraged to become active in spreading STU's information and in developing STU's nuggets and modules.

“The Caspian Sea Encyclopedia” is the second one in the new series of encyclo- dias about the seas of the former Soviet Union published by Springer-Verlag. The ?rst volume – “The Aral Sea Encyclopedia