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La cultura cimarrona llega a Portobelo el próximo fin de semana

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Foto de archivo del GECU.

Los Diablos Y Congos se Tomarán Portobelo

por Roberto Enrique King — GECU

La magia, la fuerza y el colorido de las manifestaciones propias de nuestros pueblos costeños herederos de la cultura de los negros congos, podrán disfrutarse en un gran escenario durante el 13° FESTIVAL DE DIABLOS Y CONGOS DE PORTOBELO 2023, el próximo sábado 6 de mayo en la histórica población colonense, gracias a la organización del Patronato del Festival de la Pollera Congo, Máscaras y Bailes de Diablos

Este importante evento se volverá a realizar cada dos años para convocar a miles de panameños procedentes de distintos puntos del país y a turistas, residentes y visitantes extranjeros que se sienten atraídos por este impactante espectáculo, en el que agrupaciones de congos, diablos, músicos y cantalantes procedentes de toda la geografía de Colón y otras provincias donde también se practica este juego-ritual, presentan al público sus mejores habilidades y creaciones en máscaras, vestuarios, danzas y cantos.

El Festival se realizará este año bajo el lema A la cacería del Diablo Tun Tún y contará además con una Feria de comidas y artesanías, exposiciones y otras actividades para toda la familiares, celebrando estas tradiciones y costumbres de raíz afrocolonial, propias de nuestro país. Más info en redes en las redes Festival de Diablos y Congos, Fundación Portobelo y Festivales de Portobelo

 

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¿Wappin? Long weekend / Largo fin de semana

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May Day

Lots of music for a restful weekend
Mucha música para un fin de semana tranquilo

Concierto Ruben Blades La Rosa de los Vientos 1997
https://youtu.be/VoY9KL-xCfk

Vanesa Martín – Punto y coma
https://youtu.be/Vwpw7TELSjg

Electric Light Orchestra – Poorboy (The Greenwood)
https://youtu.be/VMJvsPNaD3M

Mon Laferte – Tiny Desk Concert
https://youtu.be/Dy4pEFFbFsA

Dolores O’Riordan & Sinead O’Connor – No Need To Argue
https://youtu.be/3XstZjZAmLQ

Aretha Franklin – Respect
https://youtu.be/6FOUqQt3Kg0

Joss Stone in Spain 2022
https://youtu.be/1bQnsyj6lBA

Ladysmith Black Mambazo – Live at KEXP 2016
https://youtu.be/FclwRECHoWc

David Bowie & Freddie Mercury – Under Pressure
https://youtu.be/HglA72ogPCE

McCall Brothers Band — Crossroads To Chicago (History Of Blues)
https://youtu.be/-0a5-J2somM

Yomira John – Yo No Acostumbró
https://youtu.be/G-KpTRDyDKA

Cultura Profética – Tributo a Bob Marley
https://youtu.be/QDhzffs7SGY

Romeo Santos – Solo conmigo
https://youtu.be/69ppp5Ipook

Jefferson Airplane – Wooden Ships
https://youtu.be/hIccZsURyLc

Rachel Barton Pine — Rapsodia panameña
https://youtu.be/XazPppzA-S4

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Myrick, The high price of fear

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weenie with gun
Not a healthy way to sleep. As more senseless shootings claim lives, it’s time to turn away from apocalyptic rhetoric and focus on what actually makes us safer. Shutterstock photo.

Armed and afraid: the high price of fear

by Svante Myrick — OtherWords

A teenage boy rings the wrong doorbell and is shot in the face. A 20-year-old woman is fatally shot when she and her friends pull into the wrong driveway. Two cheerleaders are shot when one accidentally gets into the wrong car. And a 6-year-old is shot when kids chase a basketball into a neighbor’s yard.

These tragic events seem incomprehensible. But we got a glimpse of an underlying reason for at least one of them, the wrong-doorbell shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl. According to his grandson, the 84-year-old shooter watched a steady diet of Fox News and OAN. He was immersed in a “24-hour news cycle of fear and paranoia.”

Sadly, far-right politicians and media figures have habitually stoked fear and manufactured moral panics as a political strategy to amp up their base. And it’s having an effect: For decades, Gallup polls have consistently found that Americans believe crime is going up, whether it is or not.

The cost of this paranoia-propaganda machine? Real human lives — and poor policy choices that continue to make America an unnecessarily dangerous place to live.

Fear boosts TV ratings for Fox News and clicks for right-wing websites. It elects “tough on crime” politicians, sells guns, and contributes to the proliferation of “stand your ground” and permissive concealed-carry laws. Violent media scares people into answering their doorbells with guns drawn.

None of these things enhances safety.

Contrary to what the gun lobby says, more guns do not keep people and communities safer. Nearly 30 studies rounded up by Scientific American have linked more guns to more crime — not less. Another recent study shows murder rates are much higher in “tough on crime” red states than “soft on crime” blue states. That’s been true every year since 2000.

Evidence keeps piling up that dire warnings and more guns don’t make Americans safer. What compounds the disaster is that this rhetoric continues to be weaponized against reforms that actually could save lives.

That’s one reason we’ve been unable to move quickly on police and criminal justice reform — even as civil rights advocates call for changes like deploying alternative first responders to reduce the risk of nonviolent 911 calls, like welfare checks or mental health crises, from turning deadly.

The same fear that makes people believe they need to arm themselves also makes them believe that cities need hugely inflated police budgets. There’s scaremongering aimed at reform-minded district attorneys, despite evidence that progressive reforms don’t increase crime in general or violent crime in particular. The same attacks are aimed at mayors and legislators who want to make changes to policing.

I know — I experienced this first-hand.

When I was mayor of Ithaca, New York, we got much tougher about screening police applicants. Our city council approved a complete overhaul of our police department to prioritize unarmed responses. And the city halted no-knock warrants for suspected drug crimes.

I was routinely called “anti-police” by the far-right wing. But we forged ahead with our forward-thinking approach to public safety and crime remained low — often dramatically lower than in other cities our size.

The recent rash of shootings are horrific at an individual level. At the social level, a critical lesson here is that a climate of fear — and those who benefit politically or financially from it — gives us bad laws, bad politics, and bad behavior that endanger us all.

It’s time for that to stop. It’s time to turn away from the fearmongers and toward solutions that work.

Svante Myrick is the president of People for the American Way and a former mayor of Ithaca, New York. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.

 

 

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Jackson, for voting representative AND for secretary.

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EJ

I am also running to be voting representative
at the Democrats Abroad global conventions

by Eric Jackson

It used to be that as chair or vice chair of a country committee, one got a vote at the global organization’s general meetings. I have been each of those things for a term, which means four years of such gatherings, all attended online for my part. Plus, under another chair I also attended some events with a proxy vote. I know the serious work, and also the games.

I’m not an organization climber, nor someone who uses Democrats Abroad to self-promote. I’m not so afraid of losing popularity if I point out something that’s amiss, nor am I so hyper-sensitive that I can’t and don’t work with somebody who has different ideas that mine to accomplish something worthy that we agree upon. The Democratic Party, were it in another country, would be several different parties that would need to come together to negotiate electoral coalitions. Were Canada to have a US-style two-party system their equivalent to the Democrats would be the Liberals + the New Democrats + some factions of Quebec nationalists. In Panama there is all this speculation about who will run with whom to win the next elections, given that no party commands even a third of the voters’ loyalty.

A vote at the global meetings is best used to unite the factions into a functional, winning organization. That’s how I used mine as chair and vice chair, and how I’d use it as voting representative under the new rules that give DA Panama three of those instead of just two.

What’s coming up this time, and what’s important to me?

The officers will be up for election.

Global chair Candice Kerestan will likely seek a second two-year term. I’d vote for that. No perfection worthy of beatification, but she has done well enough.

Global counsel Orlando Vidal says that “other duties” are calling him away, so he won’t run again. I’m happy with that. We need a legal team, not just practicing lawyers, to fend off the rising tide of state laws trying to suppress the votes of US citizens living overseas. The legal team, headed by the practicing lawyer who becomes global counsel, should retain a specialized election law firm in the United States, probably located in Washington DC.

We need to have better press relations, both at the global and Panama level.

What special perspective would I bring to bear in the global organization? Among other things, as a low-level volunteer, a guy who works under others as part of the Democrats Abroad Global Seniors Caucus communications team.

a volunteer
Sending out Earth Day greetings, recognizing the major holidays of the major religions, trying to maintain the interest of different factions of the Democratic Party, looking for, reading and passing on things of interest to senior voters – not the sorts of things through which one gets rich or climbs up to the DNC, but part of doing the job.

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ANTAI vs. La Prensa

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them

 

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To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.

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Rude questions about politically charged gang busts

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Sleeping with the enemy
Caught sleeping with the enemy. Rubianesa Baker, 23, from a police trophy video of her arrest along with alleged fugitive gang leader Ezequiel “Zequi” Alarcón, 44, in an upscale home at The Reserve, a development on Panama City’s east side. Baker was at the time working in the juvenile delinquency prevention department at the Ministry of Government. Her mother, Katy Costarelos, is the PRD representante of Palmas Bellas, on Colon’s Costa Abajo.

Rude queries about unusual news

by Eric Jackson

In the wee hours of April 10, a heavily armed police unit burst into a condo in The Reserve, rousting fugitive gangster Ezequiel “Zequi” Alarcón and government functionary Rubianesa Baker out of bed without resistance. Later we were told that the money laundering investigation that led to the arrest began in March of last year, and that in July of last year Alarcón had been sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for illicit gang association in a case that went back some nine years to a little reign of terror on the shores of Gatun Lake, in Escobal and Puerto Escondido. As in assaults, robberies, a double murder in 2014 and so on.

  • So THIS DUDE was sentenced to serious time in prison, under investigation on other things, and instead of being taken straight away to prison, was allowed to remain at large for the better part of a year?

We are told by authorities that 11 individuals and 7 companies or foundations are named as defendants, and that four of the people remain at large and are subject of INTERPOL bulletins in case they are or will be outside of Panama. Which might explain why Alarcón remained at large — perhaps he was being watched and followed to see if he would lead to others.

And what are police and prosecution sources saying that Alarcón’s ring was doing?

  1. Receiving drugs from Colombia.
  2. “Contaminating” shipping containers by introducing these drugs into them.
  3. Laundering proceeds of the illegal drug trade through small businesses and luxury real estate deals.
z man
Zequi goes down, at the hands of a special SENAN team. Why the National Aeronaval Service? There might be various reasons, which have not been made public. SENAN photo.

Of the seven individuals taken into custody, four worked for the government. In addition to Ms. Baker at the Ministry of Government, there was one Aylín Ortega at Pandeportes, the public sports organization; Margarita García, an accountant for the Ministry of Education; and Yasmina Almengor, who worked for the junta comunal at the San Miguelito corregimiento of Mateo Iturralde, which centers on the former Canal Zone community of Paraiso.

Consider the places named. Escobal and Puerto Escondido are on Gatun Lake, not far from the Atlantic Side locks. Paraiso is on the east side of Culebra Cut, not far from the Pedro Miguel locks.

  • So if this gang was introducing drugs into shipping containers, where and how were they doing this? Had the infiltrated the ports somewhere, or were then getting stuff onto ships moving through the canal?

So far there is no official mention of corruption in either the Panama Maritime Authority, which runs the ports, or the Panama Canal Authority, which runs the canal. A part of this story is conspicuously untold. Confidential information pertaining to a continuing investigation? Might be.

One of the details that has been stated by government sources is that the drugs allegedly introduced into containers were headed for the United States. It would be an easy guess that US authorities, most probably the Drug Enforcement Administration, would have been involved here.

These four women who worked for the government, nor Baker’s mother Katy Costarelos, the PRD representante of the coastal Colon community of Palmas Bellas that has surely seen its share of smuggling over the years, were not the most politically prominent persons named. But before we go on, let’s acknowledge Costarelos’s constituency, and Escobal, were parts of the coastal Colon circuit that President Cortizo used to represent in the National Assembly.

  • Did Nito Cortizo personally know Ms. Costarelos, or any of the four government workers who have been named in this case?

Run a political patronage administration and rude questions ought to be asked when things go way wrong among those hired.

More prominent in PRD politics, for a long time, than any of the functionaries was this businesswoman who used to be one of the officers of the PRD youth wing.

The above is the political and business nickname of one Caridad Milagro Hurtado Almengor, owner of a number of small businesses, the centerpiece of which is said to have been an outgrowth of a beauty parlor, which offered all-things-covered trips to Colombia for cosmetic surgery.

Caridad Kanelon is one of these activists who likes to have her photos taken with political figures, and pastes them in social media. How innocent our suspicious the associations may be, they include folks like the controversial PRD legislator from San Miguelito Raúl Pineda, who declared her the best businesswoman in Panama over recent years on his Instagram account, and the vice minister for domestic commerce and industry Omar Montilla.

  • Was Caridad part of the PRD “donor base?” If so, to which campaigns or party organizations did she contribute, and how much?
palmas bellas
Last month Nito was on hand to inaugurate a new preschool at Palmas Bellas in his old legislative circuit. Ministry of Social Development photo.

It’s another scandal touching or appearing to touch government and political circles. It’s easy to be cynical. It’s easy to be partisan. As if gangsters have bought influence with only one of the political parties here. As if when organized crime infiltrates a political organization, all of the members of that group are involved and benefit.

Nito put in his disavowal, in a speech in Chepo: “Regardless of whoever falls, whoever falls falls..”

  • Is Nito both serious and even-handed about that, given that his party is excluding the proceeds of public corruption from its civil forfeiture of assets proposal in the legislature, and given that his administration’s National Transparency and Access to Information Authority has fined La Prensa for publishing a photo of Benicio Robinson in an article about the political management of public transportation permits?

During the afternoon of Monday, April 24, while the finishing touches were being put on this story,The Panama News Internet connection went out. It took us a day and a half to get it up and running and post this thing.

 

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Editorials: Things fall apart here and there; and Running scared

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empires of the past
The former Trump Ocean Club, the curved building on the center left. Archive photo by Eric Jackson.

Crumbling empires

Donald Trump and Ricardo Martinelli had a falling out over this place. Trump saw fit to put his name on a construction project in a locally notorious flood plain, he came to cut the ribbon with Martinelli one rainy season morning and the streets around it were underwater. The Donald blamed Don Ricky.

Title to the property and The Trump Organization’s management contract were lost in a US bankruptcy court and by operation of Panamanian laws protecting condo owners’ rights. They chiseled the Trump name off of it.

Trump and Martinelli still cherish dreams of political comebacks but they’re both on losing streaks, directly and indirectly. Trump propagandists Fox News suffered a huge defeat to their credibility when they were forced to settle a libel suit by the Dominion voting system company. Martinelli stands to lose his newspaper chain and his eligibility to run for president if he loses the New Business case, which is about the alleged diversion of public funds to buy the media properties that he turned into crud propaganda outlets. 

Both Martinelli and Trump face onslaughts of multiple criminal cases this year. They both have annoying civil lawsuits against them as well. Their respective shrunken teams of acolytes are as loud and strident as ever — but it may be much worse for Trump as his crowd features nuts with guns who may add yet more violent incidents to the US political narrative.

So, what to do? Remain calm. Speak out in low voices. Insist upon equal rights — and duties — for all. Register and vote. Do not let Trump’s or Martinelli’s bullies shut you down.

History’s pages are turning. But when evil empires fall, it’s never a pretty sight and some people who didn’t deserve it are likely to be hurt by the falling rubble.

Insistent that justice be done as we ought to be, we should be looking beyond that to assert what we want ourselves and our countries to be. It’s not a game. 

responding to a smear
Responding to a smear. That it’s needed says many things about Panama these days.

The uninspiring run scared

Above we see the Lombana campaign play defense. Some sleazy online operative tried to link him to UNACHI rector Etelvina de Bonagas, a very unpopular public figure who aligns with the PRD. So one of Lombana’s friends responded in this way. The candidate himself avoided comment.

He’s running in single digits in most presidential polls, but former diplomat Ricardo Lombana, who ran for president as an independent last time, also shows lower negative ratings than all of those who are running ahead of him in the polls. So the usual suspects are going out of their ways to drag him into negativity pits.

Lombana has a party this time – Otro Camino – but does not appear to be ready to play the usual small parties game, wherein alliances are made on the basis of a negotiated division of political patronage spoils. We shall see if he can be elected without passing out goodies on the campaign trail.

He runs at a time when all of the established parties are discredited. He runs having served as a diplomat for both PRD and Panameñista administrations, as an attorney I a top corporate firm and as an editor at La Prensa. He had an internationally prestigious education. He takes social and economic stands that would mostly annoy the left, but stands for a new constitution that ditches political patronage and big money influence, both of these mainstays of the oligarchy’s power. He’s the sort of guy who when in the room with an ogre opponent, will be civil with the ogre.

The main Lombana advantage is that he comes along at a time when the leading proffered options are so horrible. “He stole but he got things done” versus a guy with a big fake smile from whom you’d expect an offer of a “heads I win, tails you lose” coin toss. It’s a unique moment and traditional politicians and power brokers are afraid of him.

Consider. If you have to attack Lombana for being cordial with Martinelli, if you have to stick PRD sleaze to his name and reputation, if based on old associations rather than his behavior it’s alleged that he’s some sort of grifter, these are signs of weakness.

It will be sometime early next year when we see who is running and which alliances have been made. THEN The Panama News may consider whom, if anyone, to endorse. However, in the here and now Mr. Lombana’s campaign is deeply impressive when one looks at those who are moved to destroy it before it gets off the ground.

Sculpture of Confucius in Nanjing. Wikimedia photo by Kevin Smith NYC.

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

Confucius

Bear in mind…

Religion without humanity is poor human stuff.

Sojourner Truth

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

Eric Hoffer

The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.

Hannah Arendt

 

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¿Wappin? The old buzzard’s late dry season mix

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buzzardly

La mezcla de finales de verano del pavón viejo

Natalie Merchant & Abena Koomson-Davis – Big Girls
https://youtu.be/Q7XJb7aWv80

Marvin Gaye’s Greatest Hits Playlist
https://youtu.be/AUaGBrp1HFQ

Roger Waters – Wish You Were Here
https://youtu.be/16C741fQ1s4

Karol G – Viña del Mar 2023
https://www.youtube.com/live/6hvu2GXYr8o

Annie Lennox – Both Sides Now
https://youtu.be/P2NfgLlJ6zQ

Carly Simon – Coming Around Again
https://youtu.be/hjM4SWoJ59E

Orestes Vilató – It’s About Time
https://youtu.be/KUkYKf0vS8w

Cyndi Lauper – Blue
https://youtu.be/c_VrzLuy2WY

Denise Gutiérrez – Sesiones Prodigy 2013
https://youtu.be/qszTY_7XN2c

Rómulo Castro – La Rosa de los Vientos
https://youtu.be/QUoV65mVgss

Carlos Santana & Gato Barbieri – Europa
https://youtu.be/h4Mrp6wuSwk

Mon Laferte – Festival del huaso de Olmue 2023
https://youtu.be/-hGqyeg3Dbo

Norah Jones & Robert Glasper – Let It Ride
https://youtu.be/GDvqIME7zgI

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GOP 2024 strategy: suppress college students’ votes

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Cleta
Cleta Mitchell, a video still from US Representative Tom Cole’s website.

Audio reveals top GOP lawyer’s 2024 strategy: make it harder for college students to vote

by Jake Johnson — Common Dreams

A longtime Republican lawyer who aided former President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election told GOP donors that the party should be working to roll back voting on college campuses and other initiatives aimed at expanding ballot access, according to audio obtained by progressive journalist Lauren Windsor.

“What are these college campus locations?” Cleta Mitchell, a top GOP attorney and fundraiser asked during a presentation at the Republican National Committee’s donor retreat in Nashville last weekend.

“What is this young people effort that they do? They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed,” lamented Mitchell, an avid voter suppression campaigner who has represented Republican organizations, individual lawmakers, and right-wing groups such as the National Rifle Association.

According to The Washington Post, which reviewed a copy of Mitchell’s Nashville presentation, the GOP attorney’s remarks “offered a window into a strategy that seems designed to reduce voter access and turnout among certain groups, including students and those who vote by mail, both of which tend to skew Democratic.”

“Mitchell focused on campus voting in five states—Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Virginia, and Wisconsin—all of which are home to enormous public universities with large in-state student populations,” the Post reported Thursday. “Mitchell also targeted the preregistration of students, an apparent reference to the practice in some states of allowing 17-year-olds to register ahead of their 18th birthdays so they can vote as soon as they are eligible.”

Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, noted in response to Mitchell’s presentation that “Wisconsin has 320,000 college students.”

“If the GOP had won the state Supreme Court race, they would’ve—as this speech makes clear—engineered a crackdown on student voter freedoms,” Wikler wrote on Twitter. “Instead, thanks in part to student turnout, democracy lives on in Wisconsin.”

“The Trump machine wants to disenfranchise students,” Wikler added. “We’re fighting them in WI. They’ve got their eye on our state, and NC and VA too.”

Republican lawmakers in dozens of states across the country have introduced at least 150 bills aimed at restricting ballot access this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

“Two of the more radical proposals include a Texas bill that would allow presidential electors to disregard state election results and a Virginia bill that would empower a random selection of residents to void local election results,” the group observed.

In her speech to Republican donors, Mitchell said GOP lawmakers should be using their dominance in state legislatures to “combat” voting by college students and measures such as same-day voter registration.

Mitchell pointed specifically to North Carolina, where Republicans now have veto-proof majorities in both legislative chambers thanks to erstwhile Democratic state Rep. Tricia Cotham, who recently switched parties.

“Instead of fighting for the people or actually earning the votes, Republicans’ only plan is to try to ‘combat’ voting on college campuses and prevent students and young people from participating in our democracy,” Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) wrote Thursday. “They are SHAMELESSLY and DESPERATELY saying the quiet part out loud.”

The New York Timesreported last month that Republicans, “alarmed over young people increasingly proving to be a force for Democrats at the ballot box,” have already been “trying to enact new obstacles to voting for college students” in recent weeks.

“In Idaho, Republicans used their power monopoly… to ban student ID cards as a form of voter identification,” the newspaper reported. “But so far this year, the new Idaho law is one of few successes for Republicans targeting young voters. Attempts to cordon off out-of-state students from voting in their campus towns or to roll back preregistration for teenagers have failed in New Hampshire and Virginia.”

“Even in Texas, where 2019 legislation shuttered early voting sites on many college campuses, a new proposal that would eliminate all college polling places seems to have an uncertain future,” the Times added.

The intensifying GOP campaign against youth voting comes after young people had a major impact on the 2022 midterms. As researchers noted in a recent analysis for the Brookings Institution, strong enthusiasm and turnout among young voters “enabled the Democrats to win almost every battleground statewide contest and increase their majority in the US Senate.”

“To the GOP: I hope you’re afraid,” tweeted Olivia Julianna, director of politics and government affairs at Gen-Z for Change. “I hope you wake up every morning haunted by the chants of young voters protesting your attacks on our rights. You should be afraid. Because you’re going to lose power, one vote at a time.”

 

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Amaya, El Niño is coming…

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Pompanitas
Marine heat waves can reach the ocean floor as well as surface waters. Photo CC by Sebastian Pena Lambarri via Unsplash.

El Niño is coming, and ocean temps are already at record highs – that can spell disaster for fish and corals

by Dillon Amaya — National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

It’s coming. Winds are weakening along the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Heat is building beneath the ocean surface. By July, most forecast models agree that the climate system’s biggest player – El Niño – will return for the first time in nearly four years.

El Niño is one side of the climatic coin called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It’s the heads to La Niña’s tails.

During El Niño, a swath of ocean stretching 6,000 miles (about 10,000 kilometers) westward off the coast of Ecuador warms for months on end, typically by 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1 to 2 degrees Celsius). A few degrees may not seem like much, but in that part of the world, it’s more than enough to completely reorganize wind, rainfall and temperature patterns all over the planet.

White corals indicate bleaching from heat stress.
Marine heat waves can trigger coral bleaching. Photo by Alexis Rosenfeld/Getty Images

I’m a climate scientist who studies the oceans. After three years of La Niña, it’s time to start preparing for what El Niño may have in store.

How El Niño affects the planet

No two El Niño events are exactly alike, though we’ve seen enough of them that forecasters have a pretty good idea of what’s likely to happen.

People tend to focus on El Niño’s impact on land, justifiably. The warm water affects air currents that leave areas wetter or drier than usual. It can ramp up storms in some areas, like the southern United States, while tending to tamp down Atlantic hurricane activity.

How El Niño forms. NOAA.

El Niño can also wreak havoc on the many marine ecosystems that support the world’s fishing industries, including coral reefs and seagrass meadows.

Specifically, El Niño tends to trigger intense and widespread periods of extreme ocean warming known as marine heat waves.

Global ocean temperatures are already at record highs, so El Niño-induced marine heat waves could push many sensitive fisheries to a breaking point.

The problem with marine heat waves

A marine heat wave is just that: a “wave” of extreme heat in the ocean, not dissimilar to an atmospheric heat wave on land.

At their smallest, marine heat waves can inundate local bays and coves with hotter-than-normal water for a few days or weeks. At their largest, marine heat waves like the Northeast Pacific Warm Blob of 2013-2014 can grow to gargantuan proportions, with regions three times the size of Texas experiencing ocean temperatures 4 to 6 F (about 2 to 3 C) above average for months or even years.

An example of a marine heat wave showing intense heat.Fierce marine heat waves like this one in 2019 can wreak havoc on sea life off the North American Pacific Coast with temperatures about 4 to 6 F (2 to 3 C) above normal. Charts by Dillon Amaya.

Warm water might not seem like a big deal, especially to surfers hoping to leave their wetsuits at home. But for many marine organisms that are highly adapted to specific water temperatures, marine heat waves can make living in the ocean feel like running a marathon.

For example, some fish increase their metabolism in warm waters by so much that they burn energy faster than they can eat, and they can die. Pacific cod declined by 70% in the Gulf of Alaska in response to a marine heat wave. Other impacts include bleached corals, widespread harmful algal blooms, decimated seaweeds and increased marine mammal strandings. All told, billions of U.S. dollars are lost to marine heat waves each year.

Marine heat waves flare up for a variety of reasons. Sometimes ocean currents shift warm water around. Sometimes surface winds are weaker than normal, leading to less evaporation over the ocean and warmer waters. Sometimes cloudy places just aren’t as cloudy for a few months, which lets more sunlight in and heats up the ocean. Sometimes both weaker winds and fewer clouds happen at the same time, producing record-breaking marine heat waves.

Where El Niño fits in

In the climate system, El Niño is king. When it dons its fiery crown, the entire planet takes notice, and the oceans are no exception. But the likelihood of increased marine heat wave activity during El Niño depends on where you are.

Along the US West Coast during El Niño, surface winds that normally blow from the north tend to subside. This weakens evaporation and slows upwelling of colder, deeper water. That increases the chances of coastal marine heat waves.

Peruvian fishers have for centuries weathered periods of extreme ocean warming that drive fish away. It wasn’t until the 1920s that scientists realized that these South American marine heat waves were related to the Pacificwide ENSO.

In the Bay of Bengal east of India, interactions between El Niño and a tropical air flow pattern known as the Walker Circulation elevate the risk for marine heat waves.

Seafloor heat waves are another risk

Even if marine heat waves aren’t more obvious at the ocean surface this year, it doesn’t mean all is well down below.

In a recent study, my colleagues and I showed that marine heat waves also unfold along the seafloor of coastal regions. In fact, these “bottom marine heat waves” are sometimes more intense than their surface counterparts. They can also persist much longer. For example, a 1997-1998 bottom marine heat wave off the U.S. West Coast lasted an extra four to five months after surface ocean temperatures had already cooled.

Events like this can be related to El Niño and put a lot of stress on bottom-dwelling species. Bering Sea snow crab landings were down 84% in 2018 after a marine heat wave reached the seafloor.

We’re in (for) hot water

With El Niño on the horizon, what can we expect for this year?

The good news is seasonal forecast models can skillfully predict marine heat waves three to six months in advance, depending on the region. And forecasts tend to be most accurate during El Niño years.

Map showing where marine heat waves are forecast in October 2023.NOAA’s marine heat wave forecast issued in early April predicting October 2023. NOAA/Jacox, et al. 2022

The latest forecast predicts several active marine heat waves to persist into June-August, including in the North Pacific, off the coast of Peru, southeast of New Zealand and in the tropical North Atlantic.

The same forecasts predict El Niño to ramp up over the next six to nine months, increasing marine heat wave risk in January to March of 2024 for the US West Coast, the western Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the tropical North Atlantic.

That said, these predictions are far enough out that things could change. Time will tell whether they hold (hot) water, but we would do well to prepare. El Niño is coming.The Conversation

Dillon Amaya, Climate Research Scientist, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

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