CRI听力:El Nino Brings Severe Drought to Pacific Ocean Countries

During "El Nino", the average temperature of the water in the Pacific Ocean increases, causing a decrease in rainfall across much of Latin America.

Rogerio Bonifacio is a Climate Analyst for the World Food Programme.

He gives a breakdown of the duration of effects for the current El Nino.

"The current El Ni?o event that started in March 2015 has peaked in December, being one of probably the strongest on record and will wind down toward the middle of 2016. Its effects however will be felt all the way to early 2017 and its effects have been widespread geographically. El Ni?o has caused impacts on the growing seasons of Central America and Haiti, Ethiopia, where it registered one of the driest seasons in the past 50 years, all the way to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, which again has suffered one of the major droughts on record."
 
In Bolivia, El Nino brought drought to the country's second-largest Lake Poopo.

The lake has officially been declared evaporated and its disappearance has caused hundreds of people to lose their livelihoods and migrate to urban areas.

In Colombia, a drought aggravated by El Nino is threatening lives and livlihoods.

In early February the governor of a northern Colombian department said four children had died from malnutrition and 15 others were hospitalised.

In Africa lack of rainfall in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia is also causing hardship.

In Ethiopia the drought has caused lack of food for a large number of vulnerable people.

For nearly three months, Indonesia was blanketed by smoke from forest fires that followed land clearing in 11 provinces.

Nelson Quispe Gutierrez is the director of forecasts at the National Service of meteorology and hydrology of Peru.

He explains the effect of El Nino on shorelines.

"El Nino is a hot time in the coastal areas, is caused by the entry of masses of warm water coming from the Equatorial Pacific, to the west, rather distant thousands of kilometres, slowly begins to warm our shores. The heating of these shores, coincides with the rainy season, makes atmosphere conditions very unstable and slowly increases the rains that occur in these areas."

He added that after El Nino there is often a cyclical cooling of the Pacific Ocean known as La Nina, which also has a profound effect on weather patterns.

"The phenomenon of La Nina is just the opposite, if El Nino is warming, La Nina is cooling. La Nina kills El Nino. In the cold stage the situation is also rainy, not only in the north and in high parts of the Sierra, but also in the jungle."

El Nino and La Nina occur every three to seven years with the ocean returning to more normal temperatures in between. El Nino is more frequent than La Nina.