Colombia has raised alarm bells over the possibility that a new phenomenon of The girl cause great havoc in the coming months. After a period of drought The boy, the decrease in temperatures of the equatorial Pacific Ocean now warns of a season of massive floods, landslides and cyclones. President Gustavo Petro recognized the seriousness of the situation on May 18 and ordered the creation of a Unified Command Post (PMU). “All mayors must be clear about their high climate risk areas,” he stressed. Meanwhile, the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD), immersed in a corruption scandal, warned that the country “is not ready” for the challenge. A few decisive weeks begin, then, to mitigate the most destructive impacts.
The phenomenon should not be confused with the usual rainy season, which has already begun. In the Andes and the Caribbean, these periods are common between April and June, and between October and December. The rainfall of The girlHowever, they are more unpredictable. They do not have exact cycles and respond to probabilistics, which means that they occur in some years and not in others. In the case of 2024, the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Ideam) predicts that there is around 69% chance that the phenomenon will manifest between July and September. Studies indicate that it occurs when five consecutive months pass in which the temperature of the surface waters of the equatorial Pacific Ocean are 0.5 degrees Celsius below average. It may happen, it may not.
And the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Ideam) predicts that there is around 69% chance that the phenomenon will manifest between July and September. Studies indicate that it occurs when five consecutive months pass in which the temperature of the surface waters of the equatorial Pacific are 0.5 degrees Celsius below average. It may happen, it may not.
The reasons also differ. Andrea Devis-Morales, oceanologist and professor at the Universidad del Rosario, comments by phone that rainfall during the rainy seasons is related to the location of the sun. The south and north winds are in the areas of greatest radiation, with lower pressures, and they throw away the water they have been collecting. On the other hand, The girl It depends on the ocean. Unusually low water temperatures cause wind convergence zones to move from the ocean to warmer parts of the continent. “The ocean is the thermostat of the planet, the one that regulates whether things happen or not. If something abnormal happens, it is reflected in the atmosphere: it rains where it doesn’t have to rain and there is drought where it should be raining,” the academic points out.
The effects of The girl They are not uniform. Colombia is one of the countries in which the phenomenon manifests itself in excessive rainfall – in others, such as Peru, changes in The boy and The girl They invest-. Likewise, the entire Colombian territory is not usually affected, as clarified by meteorologist Christian Euscátegui by telephone. “On some occasions the rainfall has been generalized, but it tends to be more specific in the Andean, Caribbean, Pacific regions and some areas of the Orinoco,” he says. In these specific places, the probabilities of landslides, river overflows and floods increase.
The climate emergency
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President Petro has framed the situation within the climate emergency. “The crisis is unpredictable. The predictable phenomena of The boy and The girl They now take on unpredictability. It was not normal that immediately after The boy came with force The girl, but that’s how it is now,” he commented on his social networks when he announced the creation of a PMU. In favor of his assumption is that 2023 was the hottest year on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Likewise, sea surface temperatures reached record levels in the first months of last year, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States (NOAA).
AMJ (April-May-June) -MJJ (May-June-July) -JJA (June-July-August) -JAS (July-August-September) -ASO (August-September-October) -SON (September-October) -November) -OND (October-November-December) -NDE (November-December-January) -DEF (December-January-February)
Experts, however, emphasize that more studies are still needed to establish a relationship between climate change and these phenomena. Camilo Prieto, professor of climate change and environmental health at the Javeriana University, points out by phone that The girl and The boy They have occurred for millennia and there are no precise records of what they were like in times further away from the 20th century. “There is no evidence to say that they are now more frequent, although we can say that they are overlapping,” he emphasizes that Colombia faced The girl for three consecutive years before he arrived The boy the last time. Meteorologist Euscátegui thinks something similar: “It is difficult to categorically point out that they are having a greater frequency. What has been determined is that they have a tendency to be more intense.”
Professor Devis-Morales, meanwhile, is the most willing to consider that there may be some type of link with climate change. “We believe that The boy, at least, is coupling with global warming events. It used to happen once every five or seven years. Now it is more frequent and we are talking about three or five years,” he remarks. “Global warming is affecting the entire planet. The winds change, it rains where it didn’t rain and there is drought in places where it rained before,” he assesses. However, he also emphasizes that The boy and The girl have always existed and it is not known exactly how climate change affects them directly. “There is still a lot to explain. We are not clear what the future of these phenomena is,” he says.
The preparations
The director of the UNGRD, Carlos Carrillo, has recognized that the country is not ready to face the impact of The girl, which towards the end of the year would coincide with the second rainy season. “It is a reality, it is part of the consequences of not having faced the preparations with due depth and rigor,” he said earlier this month in statements to the media. He has not evaded the fact that his predecessor, Olmedo López, is involved in corruption cases that have hit the Petro Government and that include cost overruns in several contracts. “Many UNGRD projects have not been done due to corruption,” acknowledged Carrillo, who replaced López a little more than two months ago.
Professor Prieto considers that one of the main problems is that many people have settled in wetlands in recent months. “We are coming from a dry season in which the wetlands dried up. That meant that there were people who went to live there because they believed that it was land suitable for housing. But then the rain comes and the water regains its space,” he remarks. For the expert, the main thing in these months is to strengthen early warning systems with instruments such as flow meters in rivers. “Threats cannot be eliminated because you cannot eliminate The girl. But we can reduce vulnerabilities and relocate at-risk populations,” he says.
Deivis-Morales adds that critical points must be reviewed in mountains at risk of collapse and in rivers likely to overflow. “Critical sites have already been detected in mountains that always collapse when it rains. We should already be reviewing them and evaluating measures, such as placing geotextiles and bars. But we always implement the measures late, when the mountain has already fallen and everything is more expensive,” says the teacher, who also mentions the need to reforest the river banks.
The academic also warns that some infrastructure works are counterproductive. “Historically we have diverted the course of rivers to make them in a straight line. But water has memory. When you want to remove the curve from a river that has been turning for thousands of years, the river remembers and floods,” she emphasizes. Prieto agrees: “The dams fail because they try to slow down the pulse of the water, without understanding that we have to adapt to it. 26% of the Colombian territory corresponds to wetlands, that is, floodable areas. The perspective that Colombia must have is that of an amphibious country: it must organize itself around water, not seek to stop it.”
The Girl 2010-2011
It was characterized by being a period of intense rains, floods, landslides and river flooding. There were effects in rural areas and urban areas.
Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM). Analysis of the impact of the “la Niña” phenomenon 2010-2011 on the hydroclimatology of the country.
2016-2017
La Guajira, Atlántico and Bolívar experienced intense droughts, for the rest of the departments there were intense rainfall, floods, landslides and river flooding.
Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM). El Niño and La Niña phenomenon 2016-2017.
2020-2021
It was characterized by being a period with floods, landslides and large rainfall in rural and urban areas.
Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM). El Niño and La Niña phenomenon 2020-2021.
Meteorologist Euscátegui, for his part, believes that it is too late to do work. “We are already in the rainy season. To build, the months of The boy“, it states. For him, the best option available is to work with local communities on any necessary relocations. “They know where historically there are mass movements and what the most vulnerable areas are,” he says.
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