top of page
BIG STORY OF THE MONTH

C

January, 2016

Canadians were out in shorts this Christmas, and it was a rather damp, rainy morning. That shook them up, if not anything else, because Canadians, or any of the North Americans had not woken up to anything like this ever before. 

Wake up, babies. Global warming is for real. 

Talk to anyone who doesn't live here, and Canada remains a synonym for cold (cleanly cold, politely cold, social-welfare-net cold — but cold). Yet anyone who's been walking outside in shorts this past week in the GTA knows better. Baby, it isn't cold outside. In fact, it's balmy, especially by Canadian standards.

In other words, it's the kind of 1 degree C weather that Americans can't handle, but that inspires teenage boys in Toronto to play pond hockey in shorts and a T-shirt. I haven't turned on my heat yet — and Christmas is over.

Weather and climate are, of course, very different things. But the sheer concentration of extreme weather events around the world over the Christmas period has lent yet more weight to the idea that the world’s climate is changing, even if the effects are currently exacerbated by the effects of El Niño.

Nasa says the current El Niño "shows no signs of waning", based on the latest satellite image of the Pacific Ocean. It bears "a striking resemblance" to one from December 1997, the agency says, "the signature of a big and powerful El Nino". The UN agency said this year's event was expected to push water surface temperatures in the east-central Pacific Ocean more than 2°C above normal.

Thousands of homes in the north of England have been affected by severe flooding, some for the second or even third time in the past few years.

More than 100,000 fled El Niño flooding in Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

Deborah Hoffman

Vancouver, Canada

You have not yet seen the worst of global warming, dear World

Worries grow over humanitarian impact as scientists say that the strongest El Niño on record 'could bring hunger, drought and disease to millions' in 2016 as oceans will record a temparature rise of 2°C above normal

In South America, where El Niño flooding has been been responsible for at least eight deaths, more than 144,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Paraguay, at least 20,000 in Argentina and several thousand in Uruguay and southern Brazil.

The floods were caused by heavy rains and bulging rivers over the last several days and come at the beginning of the southern hemisphere’s summer months. That means evacuees were also dealing with heat, humidity, mosquitoes and snakes that thrive in swamp-like conditions.

Climate experts said on Monday that the current El Niño was the strongest ever measured.

The weather phenomenon is set to exacerbate droughts in some areas, while increasing flooding in others. Some of the worst impacts are likely in Africa with food shortages expected to peak in February. Regions including the Caribbean, Central and South America will also be hit in the next six months.

A spokesperson for Oxfam said: “The effects of a super El Niño are set to put the world’s humanitarian system under an unprecedented level of strain in 2016 as it already struggles to cope with the fallout from conflicts in Syria, South Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere.

"Oxfam estimates the El Niño weather system could leave tens of millions of people facing hunger, water shortages and disease next year if early action isn’t taken to prepare vulnerable people [for] its effects. It’s already too late for some regions to avoid a major emergency.”

The humanitarian group predict that food shortages will peak in southern Africa in February. The national food security forecast of Malawi for 2015-2016 estimates that 2.8 million people will require humanitarian assistance before March.

GODZILLA EL Niño

is intensifying for 2016

What is El Niño?

El Niño is caused by a shift in the distribution of warm water in the Pacific Ocean around the equator.
Usually the wind blows strongly from east to west, due to the rotation of the Earth, causing water to pile up in the western part of the Pacific.
This pulls up colder water from the deep ocean in the eastern Pacific.
However, in an El Niño, the winds pushing the water get weaker and cause the warmer water to shift back towards the east. This causes the eastern Pacific to get warmer.
But as the ocean temperature is linked to the wind currents, this causes the winds to grow weaker still and so the ocean grows warmer, meaning the El Niño grows.

CONTINENTS UNDER THE GRIP OF EL NIÑO IRE

Latin America

Central America, particularly Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, along with Haiti and southeastern Brazil, have recorded below average rainfall this year, while heavy rains have caused flooding in parts of Argentina, Guatemala and Peru.

* According to the WFP, an estimated 2.3 million people in Central America, mostly subsistence farmers, day labourers and their families, will need food assistance because of widespread damage to crops and rising food prices due to a prolonged drought exacerbated by El Nino.

* Around 500 people were killed when torrential rains triggered mudslides on the outskirts of Guatemala City in October.

* Peru has declared a state of emergency in 14 provinces where 2 million people are particularly vulnerable to mudslides and flooding.

* El Nino has contributed to a very active tropical cyclone season in the Pacific. Hurricane Patricia made landfall in Mexico in late October, prompting mass evacuations.

* This year's El Nino has been linked to the worst floods seen in 50 years in Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.
* The floods there have forced more than 150,000 people from their homes - more than 100,000 of them in the Paraguayan capital alone.

Africa

 Low rainfall linked to El Nino is expected to lead to drought in parts of Africa, particularly in East Africa and in the Horn of Africa, according to the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP).

* Ethiopia is one of the worst hit countries and is experiencing its worst drought in decades. El Nino related drought has decimated food crops and led to poor harvests.

* Some 8.2 million Ethiopians - out of a population of nearly 100 million - need food aid. Most of those affected by drought live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and livestock for their livelihoods and food.

* In Malawi, 2.8 million people are struggling to feed themselves. So far this year, one million people affected by floods have received food assistance from the WFP.
ASIA

* Poor harvests caused by lower than average rainfall linked to El Nino have hit Papua New Guinea particularly badly.

 

Asia

Southern India could continue to experience higher than normal rainfall leading to more flooding due to the effects of El Nino, a UN report has said, flagging concerns of states like Tamil Nadu battered by record-breaking showers this month.

“While there is no detailed scientific investigation into whether there is a direct link between the 2015-2016 El Nino and Chennai city flooding yet, the consensus that strong El Nino conditions has led to abnormal rainfall during the northeast monsoon season in South Asia indicates that El Nino had a part to play in the sequence of extreme weather events in India,” said the advisory by the by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia (RIMES).

* A prolonged dry season in Indonesia, exacerbated by the effects of El Nino, led to forest fires smouldering across the archipelago in October and November.

UK and Europe

* Higher temperatures than the seasonal average have been noted in many parts of Europe and the US.
* Average temperatures on Christmas Day in France were the second highest on record, just below those of 1997.
* Desperation in one French ski resort at the lack of snow led to 100 tons of snow being airlifted in by helicopter.
* In Italy, experts say the unusually calm and dry weather has exacerbated pollution over the cities of Milan and Rome.

North America

* In the US, 13 people have died in the US state of Missouri as a result of flooded rivers after tornadoes and storms hit the region.
* A five-mile (8km) section of the Mississippi River near St Louis was closed to vessels as a result of the "hazardous conditions" that have been caused.
* El Nino has also been cited as a factor in the floods that have hit northern parts of the UK, forcing thousands from their homes and leaving thousands more without power.

* One of the most bizarre side-effects of the current turbulence in the global weather is that even at the roof of the world, at what is meant to be the coldest time of the year in the northern hemisphere, the North Pole itself is unusually warm.
* There are no instruments there at the moment to provide exact readings but US weather buoys, drifting with the ice slightly to the south, have recorded the extraordinary fact of temperatures nudging just above zero. And the Norwegian weather service estimates temperatures there to be around -2C.
* Either way, that is astonishingly warm given the average temperature for the time of year, which is around -25C.
* The spike in warmth will not last long but may conceivably act as a brake on the usual process of the growth of winter ice in the Arctic

Back to top

Penchant was to preserve what was slipping from our fingers: The vibrancy of magazines, the colors, the design, the layout, the words, the stories, the content, the passion. Penchant was to make use of what was available now: Technology, and create an online designer mag that would smear colors and add tang to the fading flavors of the world. We needed an ezine which would bring the world together. Unify skin colors, fade borders and highlight humanity.

We realized we had the experience, we had the team, we had the expertize. All we needed was the zeal to make it happen. We chose the younger generation's fervor and the older generation's expertize to launch CITRUS... for posterity of humankind...

From The Editor

Are you a corporate personnel with a zeal?  Do you want to support CITRUS ?

Then, let's talk

MORE FROM CITRUS | Click on a pic to read story
PayPal ButtonPayPal Button

Like CITRUSMAG on Facebook and share

  • FB like.jpg
  • YouTube Classic
  • Tumblr Classic
  • buffer.jpg
  • Instagram App Icon
  • stumble.jpg
  • Wix Twitter page
  • Wix Google+ page
  • LinkedIn App Icon

Back to top

bottom of page