Historic floods and droughts - Climatic Change in Deserts - page 457

Table 23.3. Documented occurrences of El Ni no-Southern oscillation events in
relation to droughts and fires in Indonesia (1877-1998). (Derived from Tapper,
2002 , table 2.1.)

Drought severity and broad
location Year(s) and ENSO Fires and broad location

1877 Strong ENSO Java (no data elsewhere) Central Kalimantan

1888 Strong ENSO South - severe

1896 Strong ENSO South - not severe

1902 Weak ENSO South and east - severe

1911 Weak ENSO Localised - not severe

1914 Strong ENSO East - severe South and East Kalimantan

1918 Weak ENSO South and east - moderate

1930 Weak ENSO East - moderate

1940-1941 Strong ENSO East - severe

1940s-1950s Lack of records

1961 No ENSO South and east - severe

1963 Weak ENSO South and east - severe

1965 Strong ENSO South and east - severe

1967 No ENSO South and east - moderate

1969 Weak ENSO South - moderate

1972 Strong ENSO South and east - severe

1976-1977 Strong ENSO South and east - severe

1982-1983 Strong ENSO Widespread - severe East Kalimantan

1986-1987 Strong ENSO South and east - moderate All Kalimantan

1991-1994 Strong ENSO Widespread - severe Sumatra, Kalimantan, Java

1997-1998 Strong ENSO Widespread - severe Sumatra, Borneo generally

= −

Strong ENSO dry season SOI below 10

Weak ENSO = dry season SOI between 0 and − 10

No ENSO = dry season SOI above 0

in India and China, river flow in India and the Nile, Java tree rings and ENSO events.
Table 23.2 summarises these findings and shows the statistically significant correla-
tions between China rainfall, Indian droughts, tree rings in Java, Nile flood height and
El Ni no occurrences in Peru for different time intervals between 1740 and 1984. Years
of extreme drought were synchronous in north-east China, India, Ethiopia and south-
east Australia in the years 1877, 1899, 1902, 1941, 1965 to 1966, 1972 and 1982 to
1983, and coincided with years of strongly negative SOI (Whetton et al., 1990 ). During
the 1877 drought, some 10 million people died of starvation in China, as did more
than 5 million in India and reputedly nearly one in two people in Ethiopia. Major
floods were synchronous in these same regions during the years 1887, 1889 to 1890,
1894, 1916 to 1918, 1955 to 1956, 1964 and 1975, when the SOI was strongly positive
(Whetton et al., 1990 ).
In a number of areas bordering deserts, including southern and eastern Africa,
north-east Brazil, New Mexico, eastern and northern Australia, central India and