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Weather experts predict bleak times ahead for EA
2006-01-10 08:01:37
By Kasembeli Albert
United Nations and Kenyan weather experts predicted yesterday that seasonal rains normally expected in eastern Africa in March may not be enough to end drought and food insecurity in the region.
Experts from the UN’s Early Warning Systems and a climate expert with Kenya’s Meteorological Department warned that eastern African and the Horn of Africa should brace for difficult times ahead.
’The dry conditions might be prolonged and most parts of the greater Horn of Africa, especially the eastern part, may not experience sufficient rainfall for a long time,’ climate expert Peter Omeny told The Guardian by telephone from Nairobi.
The meteorologists warned governments and United Nations humanitarian agencies operating in the region to put in place comprehensive contingency measures to tackle a serious humanitarian crisis that is expected to affect over 11 million people in Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan.
’Even the much anticipated March-April-May rains might fail over most parts of eastern Africa,’ Omeny warned.
He said Kenya, Tanzania and many areas of the Horn of Africa, were experiencing low rainfall as a result of the la Nina phenomenon, which is the cooling of the ocean’s surface in the Pacific that leads to lack of moisture.
Omeny said the Pacific, the world’s largest ocean, directly affected three-quarters of the world’s climate.
The surface of the Indian Ocean was also cool, he said, and not much evaporation was taking place to create atmospheric moisture either.
About 2.5 million people are estimated to be suffering from hunger in the eastern half of Kenya as a result of the failure of both rainy seasons there in 2005.
Another 2 million people are said to be facing food crisis in Somalia, and people are also facing food shortages in neighbouring areas of Ethiopia.
Kenya’s Meteorological Department issued a notice saying that food relief efforts ’may need to go beyond December 2006 in some parts of the country.’
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