Just 2 Degrees: El Nino is weakening, oil spill in Tobago

as Greta tanber joins other activists in France to stop the construction of a major highway predictions come in of a weakening El Nino at the start of its alter egoo the cooling of Pacific Waters there isn't a guarantee that linia will emerge this year but it's looking more and more likely as it goes coming up we break down these complicated weather systems this ELO event um began after three years of linia and those three years of linia did a lot of things to the global climate and an unknown vessel creates a massive oil spill on a tiny Caribbean island the effects on local tourism and who authorities think is responsible the air of the spill um makes it difficult to pick up an IMO number just 2° starts right now the situation is not under control [Music] a new 53 km Highway in France is being constructed to connect the cities of castre and too government says the a69 as the stretch is called will better connect people living in rural France to the rest of the country but that's not what environmentalists [Music] think that's the chant young people from France Spain Belgium and Sweden joined Greta tberg to resist the project they said contradicts National commitments to fight against climate change this isn't the first time protesters have tried to disrupt the process last year they used bricks and cement to barricade the road one activist was even on hunger strike for 40 days we are here because we are against this project we are here to show to show our support and solidarity with those activists who have come here activists who are local residents who are resisting this project who are defending the nature and the land that will be sacrificed for this project U it is absolute Madness that that this is going ahead um that we continue to throw people under the bus and that we continue to waste resources on something that will both destroy nature and lock further into this destructive system Inu occurs naturally every 2 to 7 years and its effects last year were predictably unusual fast forward to February 2024 an atmospheric scientist say the climate phenomenon is losing its strength extreme weather at the start of 2024 came with the announcement of a year so hot global temperatures exceeded 1.5° across an entire year for the first time on record in Chile plumes of orange smoke covered parts of the country from late January as wildfires ravaged some 430 squ km land in Colombia 400 wildfires RI through mountains Moors and forests and up to 40% of taloo Capital District is still underwater the small Pacific Island state is threatened by what author call King Tides extreme rain from Cyclone belal submerged cars in mishes and while many enjoyed an unusually warm winter in parts of Europe a historic storm drenched much of California in early February triggering flash floods and mudslides along the hills of multi-million dollar mansions [Music] Def in but elino won't live forever atmospheric scientists say the weather pattern has begun to lose strength and will likely be gone by Spring of 2024 researchers can't predict the exact date as a system is driven by Cold winds and the displacement of warm Waters and when it does finally end it won't be long before the linia season begins well let's talk about the prediction that linia ilo's opposite could develop by summertime we spoke with Paul Roundy an atmospheric scientist at the University of Albany he breaks down the relationship between extreme weather and Al Nino on what we can expect during the transition to linia okay so maybe Paul maybe you can start by giving us your assessment of the 2023 2024 IL Nino was the weather that we've seen since it started um unusual to you so U this El Nino event um began after after three years of linia and those three years of linia uh did a lot of things to the global climate um one of them was to charge the middle latitude oceans in the Western Pacific with more warm water than would normally be there and the other was um to trigger drought in in some areas for example a East Africa had several uh several seasons of drought uh associated with the linia events um but then uh between March and May of last year there was a rapid transition where the East Pacific switched from being cold uh to being anomalously warm and that warm signal realigned uh the rainfall patterns of the tropics and that forces uh changes in the atmospheric circulations year round and tends to make it wet in places that are usually dry and dry in places that are usually wet the Alo event itself was on the strong side um among the top four um events of the last century uh so quite strong but not as strong as the one in 1997 1998 and 2015 2016 oh so they've been previously stronger ill Minos oh yes uh 1997 1998 is probably the strongest on the historical record when we have good data there may have been a similarly strong event um in the late 1870s um but new events uh influenced by human activity that's a bit difficult to assess um climate change increases the the amount of we call it longwave heat radiation comes down from the atmosphere toward the ocean but it also changes the cloud distribution and if if it were just if it were just the longwave radiation coming in uh the ocean would accumulate warmth faster than it did in the past which might allow for El Nino events to happen a little bit more often but the climate models are are really conflicted about this point um some of them don't simulate El Nino very well and some of them create it too often or not often enough and and the the way the elmino events look in climate models isn't uh sufficiently similar to observations for me to trust what they would predict in in that particular context Paul now we're hearing that IL Nino is weakening how is that measured forecast so um we measure El Nino strength uh typically by the Sea surface temperature of the Eastern Pacific Ocean along the Equator um we've drawn little boxes and the real world nature doesn't like to fit in these boxes perfectly but we call them the noino boxes so there's Nino one and two which is next to the coast of South America Nino 3 and noino 4 go going toward the west over the toward the Central Pacific and in between them we have this noino 3.4 which means the the noino Box in between Nino 3 and noino 4 and Nino 3.4 is the main box that we use we average across the equator and in that region of the East Pacific the the difference from normal sea surface temperature and when it's above normal larger than half a degree uh we call that El Nino and when it's um negative U more than half a degree colder than normal we call that L and but but El Nino ELO typically maximizes in its intensity around December and this year was no different um it's typical after December that El Nino events weaken because the the normal sea surface temperature of the East Pacific starts to rise and when the when the normal temperature rises the difference between what is Elo and what is normal becomes smaller because you can't warm be above some some amount so the highest it can get the warmest it can become in an alino wave event um typically becomes less and less different from the normal so the East Pacific right now is actually warming a little bit but the anomaly the difference from normal is shrinking and that shows up as a as a weakening El noo signal I really appreciate you making this simple to understand um let me ask you one more question before I let you go Paul so when El Nino does End by late spring as forecast um and Lin begins what firstly what does it mean for summer will summer be cooler than anticipated and will winter be what winter used to be before yeah so it's complicated looking around the world there are different signs of impact so some parts of the world are made colder and some parts of the world are made warmer uh during El Nino and vice versa for L um same thing for rainfall um some parts of the world get more wet and typically during El Nino the places that get more wet are places that are normally dry and but this all flips around and then places that are normally wet get wetter than usual during during linia uh there isn't a guarantee that uh linia will emerge this year but it's looking more and more likely as it goes oftentimes an ELO event might end and just return to something neutral for a while and then we have multiple ELO events that develop in a row uh 1991 92 93 we had several weak elino events come back but the strongest elu events move out a lot of the warm water volume of the Pacific Ocean and that makes it um makes it a lot less likely that you get another elino event following a strong one and so it increases the chances that we go to linia this year for billions of animals survival means being on the move to find food mates and favorable conditions wherever they go the Harmony and the habitats depends on their habits they shape Landscapes balance populations and create even as they destroy but many are under threat a new UN study called the state of the world's migratory species reports human activity is driving one in five species listed as threatened to Extinction an existential threat also to the habitats they support take for example Great Barrier re green sea turtles their feeding habits make seagrass beds more productive they fuel biodiversity by transporting Barnacles algae and other species on their backs like many with life cycles spanning hundreds of thousands of kilometers their Journeys are time to suit their needs but warmer Waters have hatched more females than males and affected migrations many turtles arrive at feeding and breeding grounds too early too late or not at all habitat loss from development commercial fishing and fishing nets have all dropped their numbers by 90% over the past 50 years but attempts to conserve dwindling species have proven successful the humpback whale traveling thousands of miles is a giant carbon sink it absorbs 30 tons of CO2 every year taking that to the ocean floor when it dies the way they feed poop migrate and dive spreads nutrients for phytol Plankton that create oxygen and also absorb carbon these gentle Giants were hunted nearly into Extinction but a ban on Commercial whaling in 1966 has seen their population increase from, 14400 in 1966 to 21,000 today there are several ways to help others at risk regain their numbers the UN report calls on the International Community to expand protections for migration routes take down fences strengthen anti- poaching laws and reduce fishing by catch cut environmental noise and light pollution and consider animal migrations in any plans to build but these are just recommendations and existing protections are often enforced by naming and shaming the kind of help that thousands of migratory species might need will take much more kadu sabona is CEO of Africa Wildlife Foundation we talked about the significance of such a sizable number of species that at risk of Extinction really what he's saying is that uh we are in trouble uh because we know sence is telling us that we are reliant on nature for us to survive on this planet uh these species are responsible for a lot of the ecological system what I call ecological infrastructure um can you well you are on you in Kenya um can you give an example a practical example so people can understand um exactly what's at stake I I guess if you likee you can name an animal that's at risk uh talk about its impact and its need in the ecosystem that it lives in and what happens if it disappears oh yes I mean we've been around for 60 years working across the continent and we follow five key species the Lions the elephants the rhinos and the EPS as our key species that indicate what's going on with the E eological Systems in Africa uh the lion population is has declined by over 67% in my lifetime that's the last 50 years uh and this is critical the the lion play a bigger role in our ecosystem elephants in 1970s we had more than a million elephants now the El elephant population in this forests has declined by more than 75% in the in the last four years they are responsible for maintaining the ecological Integrity of the Congo Basin Forest it's critical for our climate change you know one big reason I believe that these animals are in at risk is because of human development human expansion what do you think is the alternative do you think people should just stop building new homes starting new businesses um taking away from the land to expand their own uh economics actually there are two reasons in Africa why this these have been declined uh most most I mean there so many reasons but two main ones one is our behaviors as a human species the way we managing nature where and and our own aspirations has caused and impacted these species the other side of it is the way we've done conservation of the continent too so it's double sided uh the idea that we can develop and exploit unsustainably Nature has caused the decline in species on this continent the main driver of it is habitant decline decline because of our demand from nature conservationists in return we've been we've been for a very long time trying to protect Wildlife from people you've talked about um in the past you've talked about the elite needing to get more involved in in conservation efforts and in protecting the environment how exactly do you think they can help well in Africa when you talk about Elite you're talking about young Africans they the most educated Africans that have ever lived on this planet majority of them are below 40 so they are the Elite group on the continent they're not involved the reason has been really the approaches we've used on the continent dealing with the conservation the protections idea we've been protecting Wildlife from Africans majority of people have been doing conservation the continent and non Africans the leadership of conservation movement has not has been non African Le for good reasons and they mean well perhaps without them they would be we would have had a Maj a major decline but Africans ourselves have have outsourced that responsibility to non-africans and the results are not very good the second reason is really the disconnect as as we've urbanized a lot of these young Africans live in urban centers there's a Detachment from their way of life from nature but also the conservation has been mostly led by science approaches the conversation has been so scientific and majority of Africans with indigenous knowledge have thought that this is a a sector that really must be a scientist to really know how to do conservation or do the work in cons conservation soj of Africans haven't been really involved because of lack of the science aspect of it the last Point has been they're not a models an alsville off the coast of Tobago has caused Panic on the Caribbean island authorities were notified on February 7th about the Slick which polluted around 15 km of Coastline of an island that's just about 40 km long and 10 kmers wide Tobago is heavily dependent on tourism and the spill took place during the popular Carnival season which attracts tens of thousands of tourist Street party goes annually the Prime Minister said it was unclear who the vessel belonged to we have no idea where it came from and we also don't know all that it contains what we do know it appears to be broken having made contact here and is leaking some kind of hydrocarbon that is fing the water and the coastline that vessel could have come to us from any kind of operation especially if the operation is illicit we got an update from Tobago's top official fary Augustine to be honest somehow it was missed uh by all of the state agencies responsible for border patrol and border control um and so we find ourselves in this mess The Sentinel imaging has showed us that it was leaking some 12 kilomet because before um it made its final resting spot um that when we look back at the Sentinel Imaging from last week um Tuesday there about we saw the trail of leak leading to the the final wrestling spot where it is right now um but I'm happy to see that we have been able to contain it within the 15 kilometers it has not gone beyond that area um we are we are we have currently um controlled it to the to the extent that we are managing the outflow of the spill oil is still um emanating from The Vessel however it's it's coming out of the vessel in a very controlled area and we are then using skimmers to be able to extract the oil from the water so we certainly have is this who's responsible for the spell that is still unknown at this point and that's because the air of the spill um makes it difficult to pick up an IMO number and so what has to happen is that we have to get rid of the oil to be able to pick up the IMO number the areas are also a bit difficult for divers uh because the currents are pretty strong in that area the surface currents and the vessel as we speak continues to bounce up and down on the seaf Flor making it h a bit cloudy visibility is only about a foot in some areas around the vessel because as it bounces on the floor it creates a dust pool so uh now that we have contained this spill meaning that we have entrapped the spill in a very confined area um and and we are doing the extraction we are looking to stabilize the vessel today so that we can be able to pick up uh the needed identif markers and ensure that we can um manage the process going forward but certainly whomever is responsible will be made to pay for This Disaster hundreds possibly thousands of people normally flock to Tobago to enjoy the beaches after Carnival has the spill had an impact on post Carnival celebrations no it has not because fortunately um that 15 kilomet radius most of it um invol involv in uninhabited Coastline um where we just have virging lands and uh rugged Coraline limstone Coastline uh the areas that the post Carnival revelers with FL to such as Pigeon Point bku Reef nylon pool stby all of those areas remain completely unaffected um this occurred on a portion of the Atlantic Coastline so none of our very popular white sandy beaches none of our very popular uh Reef areas have been affected um because we were able to move fast enough to contain this spill and to keep it within that 15 km Coastline that's our show we hear a pictures of dozens of newly found ocean species in the waters around Spain's Canary Islands they've made scientists rethink just how much life is still to be discovered and how global warming affects them the ocean is vast covering around 71% of the planet yet only 5% of it has been [Music] explored perfect [Music] Summer perfect [Music] summer lately you've been on my mind maybe we should try up down to see what happens driving up and down the coast got nowhere to go it's just like we imagine perfect [Music] Summer perfect [Music] summer

Channel: TRT World

Views: 6,789

Keywords: Breaking News, El Nino, Extreme Weather, Just 2 Degrees, Oil Spill, TRTWorld, Tobago, Turkish News, climate, news, trt, trt world

Id: _0Ra1Et4fBU

Length: 26min 0sec (1560 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 17 2024