Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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[34],
Figure 3.3
Zimbabwe's yearly average rainfall records (from Glantz et al., 1997).
Line
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-1.1
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Shor
PgEn
agricultural production, given that its climate is fairly dry. In any given
year, rainfall is generally not plentiful enough to allow adequate crop
production throughout the country (Bratton, 1987).
Other regions in Africa have significant connections between ENSO and
droughts. In Ethiopia, the major drought occurred following an El Niño
that decreased the main June—September rainfall but boosted the small
February—March rainfall. Drought is the dominant ENSO-related disaster
in Ethiopia, which has led to the deaths of many people and animals during
1957-58, 1964-65, 1972-73, and 1983-84 (Tsegay et al., 2001).
[34],
E
NSO and Droughts in the United States
In North America, particularly the United States, the impacts of ENSO
are most dramatic in the winter. The variability induced by ENSO typi-
cally brings drought or rainy conditions to specific regions (Ropelewski and
Halpert, 1986). In the Great Basin area of the western United States, during
ENSO years, above-normal precipitation was recorded for the April-Octo-
ber season for 81% of the years. For the same percentage of the ENSO years
in the southeastern United States and northern Mexico, above-normal pre-
cipitation was recorded during March—October. In the coastal west, the
displacement of the jet stream can bring abnormally large amounts of rain
and flooding to California, Oregon, and Washington. During the summer,
heat waves and below-normal precipitation bring drought, crop failures,
and even deaths. U.S. crop losses from the 1982-83 El Niño were projected
to be in the neighborhood of $10-12 billion.
In the Southwest, El Niño years have a fairly consistent pattern of
increased rainfall, with drought during La Niña. These impacts are also
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