'Indian Ocean Dipole', Obscure Phenomenon Contributing to East Africa's Drought

An obscure climate phenomenon in the Indian Ocean is contributing to an East Africa drought that is threatening the lives of millions of people, as famine looms.

It wasn't until the 1990s that Japanese scientists discovered the Indian Ocean Dipole, a warm pool of water that migrates between western and eastern "poles" and affects atmospheric temperatures and rainfall. The phenomenon occurs in two-year cycles of positive (warmer) and negative (cooler) sea temperatures, but it has become more extreme in recent years due to climate change. A negative Indian Ocean Dipole results in less rainfall over East Africa, and that's contributing to the current drought that aid agencies warn could trigger mass famine. The UN's emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, says 12.8 million people in Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya are "severely food insecure and in need of humanitarian assistance". Save the Children warned yesterday that Somalia is "reaching a 'tipping point' that could be far worse than the 2011 famine, which claimed 260,000 lives."

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Pablo Tosco / Oxfam

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