Where Does the Science End and the Reporting on Science Begin?

Fragilecologies Archives
29 April 1998

I had a professor many years ago who was a world-class specialist on the Indian sub-continent. He was amazing; he knew everything about the history, was on top of new theories of political and economic development, and so on. By the time I got to take his class, however, he had changed. Still smart as ever with the facts and theories he had accumulated over the years, he had fallen into the trap (as I see it) of monitoring current events relating to the sub-continent. Each day he would come to class, open up the New York Times, and read a brief news item about India or Pakistan or Bangladesh or US policy toward one of those countries. That news item became the center of discussion for the class session. For a while this was OK, but for the professor it became the easy way out … not having to prepare a lecture in search of new explanations of national behavior (the old explanations seemed no longer to work). New behavior was forced into old theories of explanation, none of which seemed to really fit the situation. He had chosen to draw on his expertise and apply it to day-to-day aspects of politics in the Indian sub-continent, rather than providing students with the larger context that history could provide.

After graduation I went on to teach various political science and political development courses and vowed never to fall into the trap of talking only about the latest thing to happen in my field. Thirty years later, I am considered an El Niño expert — at least on the issue of El Niño impacts around the globe. Recently, however, I often find myself in the midst of many El Niño researchers and fear that I am falling into the trap I said I would always avoid.

Today we as scientists, as well as the media and the public, are following El Niño’s growth and development day by day and week by week. Each wiggle and turn in the trend line of sea surface temperatures prompts us to make a projection; the line is upward and therefore El Niño is weakening; and then it is up again! This is confusing not only to the public but to the researchers as well. They have become so over-focused on the day-to-day changes in SSTs in NINO3 or NINO1+2 or in NINO3.4 that they are looking only at the proverbial trees and not getting a picture of the forest made up of those trees.

We scientists have become El Niño reporters, begged by the media to comment on each twist and turn in the trend line of SSTs or in sea surface pressure changes. We have, for this event (among the biggest in a century) settled into explaining each squiggle in a trend line, squiggles which we can only describe but can not explain. We, like my professor, have become describers (or reporters) of the daily routine of a natural process that is, in several of its characteristics, seemingly chaotic.

Each El Niño event seems to carry with it its own surprises. The 1982-83 event was missed completely by the research and forecast community. Whatever happened to SSTs in the early 1990s is still not explained to the satisfaction of most knowledgeable onlookers. And the fact is that the forecasters who might have seen signs of an emergent El Niño event in the last months of 1996 told no one about their hunches until March of 1997, when the observations showed SSTs on the rise in the equatorial Pacific region — a true fingerprint of the onset of an El Niño. And then there’s the issue of what exactly was forecast: a slight warming until the end of the year. What emerged was a humongous El Niño linked in size and potential societal impacts (by analogy) to the biggest El Niño in a century, the 1982-83 event. While forecasters can now effectively argue that they forecast a warming in 1997, they did not forecast THIS extreme warming of 1997. Is forecasting rain (e.g., drizzle) the same as forecasting torrential downpours that could lead to flooding? I think not. An El Niño was forecast BUT NOT THIS EL NIÑO.

Much of our scientific concern or need to interpret day-to-day changes in El Niño’s behavior has been prompted by the media. Flattered to be asked by the media for their interpretations (i.e., interpretations of the week) of each squiggle in an SST trend line, researchers spoke out; first about the importance of the phenomenon, and second about what the phenomenon does in general. When pressed by the media for time and space specifics “What does it mean to us in Podunk, Iowa?”, we resort to using some of the past El Niño events as a guide. Needless to say, these comments made it into the news. The adjectives got bigger as El Niño seemed to be growing in size and in strength. The consequences of an El Niño became more dire. The political aspects of talking about El Niño emerged: Vice President Al Gore, FEMA’s James Lee Witt, Governor Pete Wilson, Senator Barbara Boxer, and so on got into the El Niño act.

All of this has left the public feeling dazed and confused. The media themselves have recognized (i.e., either accepting or denying) their role in El Niño hype. Awareness of an important natural physical process by the general public is being converted into cynicism. Cartoons poking fun at El Niño are appearing in increasing numbers. Talk show hosts are joking about it. Even the media, which gave birth to the interest in El Niño, began to challenge the science of El Niño research, claiming that the event was not living up to the day-to-day forecasts about its expected behavior or impacts. Most media specialists did this either out of ignorance of the issue or out of the natural progression the media seems to follow with hot stories of the moment. The monsoonal rains did not fail in India. The winter wheat crop did not fail in Australia. Southern Africa got drenched in November and December of 1997, when the region was supposed to be in the early stages of drought. Japan had a hot summer rather than a cold one; and so on.

Forecasting an El Niño several months in advance of its onset is not an easy task. Despite the optimism recently expressed by scientists and some policy makers, lots of work remains to be done. Not only must we continue to improve our understanding of the phenomenon itself, but we must shift attention to improving our understanding of its impacts on various societies worldwide. Success in forecasting El Niño does not translate directly into an improved understanding of the impacts of El Niño’s teleconnections (i.e., linkages between Pacific sea surface temperatures and alterations in weather patterns around the globe).

For its part, the scientific community and the agencies that support it must provide the media with a more realistic picture of what is now known, what is not known, and what it is they would like to know about El Niño. The media, too, have a responsibility to become better informed on the facts surrounding El Niño – the forecasting of it as well as the process by which it develops and its potential societal impacts around the globe.

There are lessons that can be drawn from the way this El Niño has been discussed by scientists, policy makers, politicians, local weather forecasters, and the media. These are basic tenets, and one could argue that they would put the El Niño phenomenon into a proper perspective.

After the natural flow of the seasons, El Niño is the biggest climate-related disrupter of human activities. It recurs every 2-10 years (every 4 and a half years on average). It is part of a cycle of warm and cold changes in sea surface temperature in the equatorial Pacific region. It has occurred for at least 5000 years and will likely continue to occur well into the future. However, it is important to remember that the scientific community only “discovered” the global implications of El Niño in the mid-1970s. We have a lot to learn about the science and impacts of this natural phenomenon. Given its importance, it is imperative that we do a better job of educating the public and the media about El Niño so that when it does reappear, say, at the end of this century or in the first couple of years of the next century, societies will be a lot better prepared to cope with the forecasts and day-to-day observations (nowcasting) of its progress.