Opportunities Emerging from the Climatic Change
Associated with the Impacts of El Niño

Abraham Levy
Satel Producer and Host
Lima, Peru

We Peruvians, in both society and the scientific community, have always viewed the appearance of El Niño with an almost-sure negative impact on the country's economy and society. Since Pre-Columbian times, the heavy rainfall along the usually desert coastline has, for the most part, caused permanent damage to the local economies. It also contributes to the idea that sustainable development cannot be achieved in the area, because the sudden deluge resulting from torrential rainfall takes with it whatever progress may have been accomplished since the previous episode.

Yet, it appears that this scenario may not be the case in the future for the Piura Valley, if we pay close attention to regional climatic changes associated with global warming and a hypothesized greater frequency of El Niño events in future decades. During the last fifty years or so, major climatic changes have been noted in the Piura Valley, which lies almost parallel to the equator at 5°S. This area is considered by many Peruvians to be "ground zero" for El Niño. These changes are having tremendous impacts in the Sechura Desert. The desert is giving way to dry equatorial forest because of measurable changes in humidity. What is going on? As far as I have been able to interpret from the climatological data and with the assistance of Peruvian researchers, the wind patterns have altered in the past decade to give the Piura Valley a very healthy rainy season in both El Niño and La Niña years. As a result, the volume of water from the Andean foothills produces increased pastureland, which in turn produces a favorable environment for cattle production in an area which is traditionally interrupted by severe droughts in neutral and La Niña years.

Data available from 1926 support the notion that the dry equatorial forest has been descending from higher elevations, confining the Sechura Desert to an ever-shrinking area on the coastline. That also correlates with the 1997-98 El Niño event, when the rain in the higher coastal elevations surpassed that of the 1982-83 El Niño event. The opposite effect occurred at sea level.

For the first time, these considerations are being taken into account by both the national and regional governments and economic communities. This is partly because of media attention to weather and climate events since the 1997-98 El Niño. This increased attention is brought to Peru by Satel, which is an acronym that translates from Spanish to "El Niño Early Warning System." It is run by America Television, currently the largest network in Peruvian television.

– Abraham Levy
Satel Producer and Host
Lima, Peru
alevy@americatv.com.pe