Nødhjælpsorganisationerne får snart et nyt redskab til hurtig tørkeindsats. Under FNs klimatopmøde har den internationale meteorologiske organisation WMO i dag bekendtgjort planerne for et alameringssystem, der kan melde om tørkeudbrud allerede efter to til tre uger.
Irin News:
At present, the limitations of the indices used to measure dry periods mean agencies only become aware of a drought when they are in the midst of it, said Mannava Sivakumar, director of WMO’s Agricultural Meteorology Division.
Droughts have become more intense and frequent in recent years because of climate change, especially in Africa, but can now be monitored by the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), which uses mean rainfall over a long-term period of at least 30 years as a variable to develop an early warning scale.
– At the moment most countries use indices which are based on the percentage of normal rainfall days over period of time, said Sivakumar. A drought begins when the SPI is continuously negative for a period of two to three weeks, and ends when the numbers turn positive.
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