2020

Archive: 2020

February Climate Briefing: “Warm-Neutral” and Slowly Cooling

Read our ENSO Essentials & Impacts pages for more about El Niño and La Niña. As of mid-February, the sea-surface temperatures were at warm-neutral levels, while atmospheric indicators showed mainly warm-neutral conditions. A new set of model runs predicts neutral conditions are most likely through summer, with a 61% probability for ENSO-neutral (39% chance for El Niño) for the February-April […]

Tools for Desert Locust Early Warning and Control

John Furlow, Deputy Director of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, gives a virtual tour of IRI’s desert locust maproom, originally developed in collaboration with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Video transcript: If you paid any attention to the news over the past few years, you may feel like we’re living through […]

Using Big Data to Combat Catastrophes – PRISM Project

Based on a press release issued by Cornell University. Powered by IRI’s Data Library, new project aims to harness large, multi-sectoral datasets in order to identify risk factors for catastrophic events In March 1989, a tripped circuit in the Hydro-Québec power grid left 6 million people without electricity. A week earlier, an unusually harsh snowstorm […]

Burkina Faso study shows link between land degradation and migration

Below is a piece originally published on The Conversation on January 21st, 2020, and was authored by IRI researcher Elisabeth Ilboudo-Nébié. In the Sahel of West Africa – which covers Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad – land degradation has led to migration towards less densely populated and more fertile areas. The land […]

January Climate Briefing: Forecast Toes Weak El Niño

Read our ENSO Essentials & Impacts pages for more about El Niño and La Niña. As of mid-January, the sea-surface temperatures were at warm-neutral to borderline El Niño levels, while atmospheric indicators showed mainly warm-neutral conditions. A new set of model runs from the International Research Institute for Climate and Society and the Climate Prediction Center predicts neutral conditions as […]

December Climate Briefing: Neutral ENSO Conditions Favored

Read our ENSO Essentials & Impacts pages for more about El Niño and La Niña. Ángel G. Muñoz provides the briefing summary: What’s New See below for tweets summarizing the current El Niño situation. ENSO Forecasts To predict ENSO conditions, computers model the SSTs in the Niño3.4 region over the next several months. The plume graph below shows the outputs […]

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