Location of El Niño linked to Indonesian fires

Scientists in the US and Taiwan have shown that the occurrence of fires in Indonesia is linked to the location, not the strength, of El Niño weather events.

The study, which examined Pacific El Niños over nearly two decades, revealed that El Niños generating sea-surface temperature anomalies over the eastern Pacific are more likely to result in fires than those generating anomalies over the central Pacific.

“We suggest that projecting the location of El Niño events might be more important than projecting their strength for fire management in southern Borneo,” said Min-Hui Lo of the National Taiwan University in Taipei. […]

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