EL NINO COST $90 BILLION LAST YEAR, DAMAGED HEALTH
A meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was told that the number of "extreme weather events" appears to be increasing worldwide. A team of scientists at the Centre for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School believes global warming is making destructive weather patterns more extreme. The team found that this has caused an increased number of natural disasters -- and outbreaks of disease.
By Maggie Fox, Reuters Health and Science Correspondent
ANAHEIM, California - Bad weather not only caused natural disasters costing an estimated $90 billion last year, but can be blamed for outbreaks of disease ranging from malaria to cholera, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.
Most of the havoc can be pinned on El Nino - the periodic warming of Pacific Ocean waters off the coasts of Ecuador and Peru, the experts told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
But to make matters worse, La Nina, the cooling pattern that often follows El Nino, kicked in with its own climatic disruptions in April.
"There seems to be a statistically greater number of extreme weather events," Dr. Paul Epstein of Harvard Medical School, who helped direct the study, told a news conference.
"Extreme weather events are bad for our health," Epstein added. "Floods foster fungi in the ground, they help encourage mosquitoes, they cause rodents to flee their burrows." Raw sewage gets washed into the water supply as well, he said.
Droughts, too, can also succor insects such as aphids and, again, mosquitoes as running streams dry into puddles perfect for them to breed.
"This past year we have seen clusters of these diseases in these places where extreme weather has occurred," Epstein said. His team estimated that weather caused $89 billion worth of damage in 1998, compared to about $55 billion for all of the 1980s. Ice storms in California in December caused another $600 million in damage, so the year's total was easily $90 billion, he said.
In December, Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, said natural disasters caused 50,000 deaths and damage costing more than $90 billion in 1998, compared to 13,000 deaths and damage of $30 billion in 1997.
The health of animals also suffered, with direct economic consequences. An outbreak of Pfiesteria, a fish-killing algae, badly hurt fisheries in the U.S. Chesapeake Bay area, costing an estimated $60 million.
Epstein's team at the Centre for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School first mapped severe weather events, then overlapped these with reports of disease outbreaks. There was a close match.
"In Latin America extreme weather was associated with outbreaks of malaria, dengue fever and cholera," the report says. "In Indonesia and surrounding island nations, delayed monsoons - and the compounding effects of local farming practices - led to prolonged fires, widespread respiratory illness and significant loss of wildlife."
To make matters worse, La Nina - the cooling of the ocean surface that often follows an El Nino - brought more extreme weather starting in April, including flooding in Bangladesh and China, a cold wave across Europe in December and a destructive drought followed by flooding in Texas.
Epstein thinks global warming is making such weather patterns more extreme. "I think it's a combination of El Nino, La Nina and climate change," he said.
The effects of such weather can prove to be devastating. German Poveda, a hydrologist at Colombia's National University in Medellin, referred to the El Nino-induced droughts in 1990 and 1991 that brought the country's hydropower industry to a near halt, costing $1 billion. "That's a lot for the Third World country," he said.
Then La Nina brought heavy rains that damaged the delicate flowers on coffee trees. "We suffered tremendous losses," Poveda said.
Luckily, scientists can now predict some of the effects. Ants Leetman, director of the climate prediction centre at the U.S. National Weather Service, said many were now forecast three to four months ahead of time.
"El Nino forecasting is the first step in terms of being able to forecast the climate," he said.
Source: Reuters
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