China Country Case Study:
Impacts and Responses to the 1997-98 El Niño Event
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Note: This Chinese El Niño Impacts Study was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Natural Science Foundation of the People's Republic of China as a contribution to the UNEP/NCAR/WMO/UNU/ISDR study for the UN Foundation.
Executive Summary
China is the largest developing country in the world, encompassing a vast territory and with nearly 1.3 billion people. Great differences in climate are found from region to region, owing to China's extensive territory and complex topography: tropical, subtropical, temperate, plateau and alpine. The major part of China is under the influence of the Asia monsoon. Natural hazards, especially meteorological hazards, such as torrential rains, floods, droughts, typhoons, hail and frost episodes, occur frequently. Drought, flood, typhoon, frost, and hail damages are the main climatic hazards that had and continue to have substantial influence on the country's social and economic conditions.
In 1997, people in northern China experienced a very hot and dry summer season. During the 1997-98 winter, extraordinarily heavy snow fell over the Tibetan Plateau and caused great losses of human lives and property. In the summer of 1998, a great flood occurred in the Yangtze River basin, which was ranked as the second-greatest flood in China during the past fifty years. Meanwhile, the greatest flood in the past fifty years occurred in the Songhua River basin in northeastern China. Both floods caused total damages of over 350 billion yuan (RMB) (US$45 billion) in property and an officially estimated 3,000 deaths.
Following these two natural disasters, their causes were investigated thoroughly by a team led by the Ministry of Water Conservancy with participating officials from different government agencies and scientists from various research institutions. El Niño was considered as the one of major factors to be included in the forecasting process in that year. Preliminary results, however, showed that although El Niño has its most significant impacts on climate in China's tropical regions, its impacts on climate are weaker beyond this region. In China, most forecasters believe that El Niño is a strong signal that could be used in the future for predictions of climate anomalies in China. However, there are mechanisms that are not yet well understood about the relationships (or influence) between El Niño and China's climate hazards.
Historically, scientific research in China on El Niño advanced in four stages. The first stage occurred before 1950. In this period, no studies had been undertaken in China on El Niño and the Southern Oscillation (SO) and their impact on China because of the lack of awareness worldwide of the seemingly local Peruvian phenomenon, the weakness of Chinese science and technology, the lack of reliable scientific observation instruments, and difficulties in obtaining any of the very limited number of scientific reports and information about El Niño and the SO from other countries. Research topics such as interannual variability of the Asia monsoon and global atmospheric circulation, or the interactions of the atmosphere and the ocean, were not addressed at that time.
The second stage occurred from 1950 to 1980. Beginning in the 1950s, anomalous sea surface temperature (SST) variations (which were related to variations of El Niño and the Southern Oscillation – a relationship still not known in China at that time) and their relationship with global and regional atmospheric circulation began to attract the attention of China's research community. From 1980 to the early 1990s, owing to the global impacts of one of the strongest El Niño events in the twentieth century (the 1982-83 El Niño), El Niño study in China entered its third stage. With the successful forecast of the 1998 Great Flood in the Yangtze River basin, ENSO studies in China blossomed into in the fourth stage.
Mention of the El Niño phenomenon first appeared in Chinese scientific literature about six decades ago, although it was considered to be only a local natural event near Peru without any global impact. Only after the 1982-83 El Niño were the relationships between El Niño and anomalous weather events in China and its impact on China's agriculture addressed, but only within the meteorological research community. In the early 1990s, the media in China started to cover news of the impacts of the long series of El Niño events (i.e., 1990-1995) on foreign countries, especially in South America and Australia. The public, however, was still unaware of any possible relationship between El Niño events and their own daily lives, because of the lack of communication between the meteorological community (including weather services, research institutions and universities) and the public.
In early 1997 the magic phrase, "El Niño," finally escaped from the "ivory tower" of the scientific community and became one of the "hottest" words on various TV programs, and in national and local newspapers around the country. Having become so concerned about the impacts of extreme climate events on China's national economic development prospects, President Jiang Zeming and other top government leaders consulted with the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) and the National Oceanic Administration (NOA) for information on El Niño and its impacts during the period of the 1998 Great Flood from June to August 1998 in the Yangtze River Basin, even though the El Niño event, if not its lingering impacts, had already entered into in its decaying mode by that time.
Although the Chinese weather service has made seasonal and annual predictions since the early 1950s, its predictions were provided only to the central or local government decision makers when they were making their annual work plans for agriculture, water management, and disaster relief. Such information was not available to the general public. This was so because, on the one hand, the accuracy of long-range forecasts was low because of the complexity of climate variations in China. Therefore, the weather service was not confident enough in the reliability of its long-range forecasts to release its predictions to the public. On the other hand, China's weather service for a long time has lacked the trained personnel to deal with the media and the public and to educate them on climate variability, climate change, and weather events, and particularly on the climate system's societal impacts and on the usefulness of meteorological information to society. With lessons and experiences gained from the 1997-98 El Niño event, both the meteorological community and the general public in China are starting to come together to deal with climate and its impacts on various sectors of society.
Many lessons have been learned from this study and perhaps among the most important ones are the following: 1) there are many scientific uncertainties in the understanding and forecasting of ENSO's extremes and their impacts on environment and society; 2) there is a lack of communication between researchers who try to reduce or "eliminate" these uncertainties and users who desperately need the information but either never use it or are skeptical about its reliability because of the forecast uncertainties. With respect to the scientific understanding of ENSO, many of the regional uncertainties are due to the lack of proper observation networks which require human capacity building for research. Studies focused on understanding the ENSO phenomenon are needed, especially its teleconnections to China, as is more funding for basic research.
The lack of communication among the scientific community, the media, and potential users of ENSO information including but not limited to forecasts must be dealt with for the benefit of reducing the ENSO's impacts. Addressing this issue will also be useful for building a communication channel to educate the public on a wide range of scientific issues. As a scientific community, good communication and research cooperation are also needed between physical and social scientists. Trained personnel and additional infrastructure and funding are also needed to improve communication with the media and users so that the information that is provided by scientists about El Niño and La Niña events and their impacts on society and the environment is not misinterpreted.
Lessons Learned for Physical Scientists in China
Although there have been many scientists studying the impact of ENSO within China, there is still a long way to go to confirm the teleconnections between certain weather and climate phenomena that occur in different parts of China and ENSO's extreme events (i.e., El Niño and La Niña). For example, before the early 1990s, most Chinese meteorologists believed that a cool summer would occur in northeastern China during El Niño years. They had also made some successful forecasts in the late 1980s. During the 1990s, however, the situation had been totally reversed, with warm summers occurring there in El Niño years, and in 1997 northeastern China experienced its hottest summer of the twentieth century.
Another example is the association between El Niño and floods in the Yangtze River basin. Many scientists believed that usually there was a flood in the Yangtze River during El Niño Year+1 (the year following the year of the onset of El Niño). A recent study based on a statistical analysis of historical data shows that in El Niño Year+1, the chance of having flood, drought, or normal rainfall in the Yangtze River basin is almost equal (Yan, 1988, personal communication).
After the 1997-98 El Niño event, many scientists came to realize that El Niño should be considered in the making of climate forecasts in China, although its role is not as yet clearly understood.
Lessons Learned for Forecasters in China
In general, forecasters in China did not pay much attention to the possible influence of El Niño on regional climate in the country when making their operational climate forecasts. The successful operational forecasts of the Great Flood in the Yangtze River Basin have apparently helped to change many forecasters' views on El Niño. They received great praise with the correct forecasts, praise both from government and the general public. However, they also suffered greatly because they could not answer questions from decision makers and the general public about the impacts of El Niño. This was because of the lack of studies on the impacts of climate variability on Chinese society and economy. Since that time, outreach programs have been developed. Because of the lack of trained personnel, funding, infrastructure, and effective cooperation among the different agencies, the results from these programs are yet to be realized.
Lessons Learned for Decision Makers in China
During the 1997-98 El Niño, because of its great impact both on domestic and global matters, many high-level government officials, including President Jiang Zemin, called upon the Chinese Meteorological Administration to learn more about El Niño and its possible effects in China. Considering the great loss of property and lives caused by the 1998 Great Flood, the government policy makers realized that there are great gaps between scientific research and its application to society and economy. As a result, they decided to invest more of their research funding in basic scientific research, and at the same time, required all researchers to pay more attention to applying research findings to society's needs.
Although the ability to respond to natural disasters is quite efficient and effective in China, the government found that China lacks early warning systems based on scientific studies and analysis to help protect against disasters in a more effective and economical way. To build up a reliable climate-related early warning system, a high-quality scientific research program with a better monitoring system is first needed to obtain forecasts with reduced uncertainties. Second, a better communication channel(s) should be established between government representatives and scientists about the state of climate science and the limits of prediction of natural phenomena such as ENSO's extremes. Third, an organization is needed which can better coordinate efforts to cope with natural disasters among different government agencies.
China can benefit from educational programs that teach the general public how to prepare for the worst-case scenario once an ENSO extreme event has been forecast. Although the 1997-98 El Niño made El Niño a household word throughout China, a continuous and high-quality education program is needed to educate people about the lessons from past events, which should not be forgotten, and the benefit that could be obtained from climate. The development of a Climate Affairs Program at Chinese education and training centers is one such promising approach.
Lessons Learned for the Meteorological Community in China
The Chinese meteorological community has realized that relying only on improving the accuracy of forecasts by focusing on basic research is not enough to ensure a forecast's value to society. It is equally important to users, including government decision makers, business people, and the general public to help them to understand the meaning, limitation, application, and value of ENSO-related forecasts. The more understanding that can be fostered of climate (and, more specifically in this case, El Niño and its impacts), the more support, financial as well as moral, can be obtained from the wide range of potential users. Obviously, with the fast rate of development of its economy, Chinese society has become increasingly dependent on the vagaries of climate. Society needs to know more about climate, climate variability, and climate impacts. The meteorological community has a responsibility to meet these needs.
