Read here. (h/t Steve Milloy) It seems there is a catastrophic drought in the Somalia and Ethiopia region of east Africa every decade. In 2011, there again is much drought-caused suffering. The typical climate alarmist (and mainstream media) is quick to blame "global warming" for these weather disasters, but empirical-based, objective researchers think otherwise.
A new study by Wolf et al. determines that El Niño dominates the climate patterns in the east African region, bringing alternating periods of flood and drought. This cycle has been happening for thousands of years before any modern consumer/industrial CO2 emissions, and the natural ENSO pattern will continue to do so.
"Floods and droughts in East Africa are often unleashed by far-away events in the tropical Pacific—the warm (El Niño) or cool (La Niña) phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)...waxing and waning of rainfall in eastern tropical Africa in unison with ENSO is nothing unusual and existed already 20,000 years ago, according to a study...Scientists have attributed the severe drying to La Niña conditions that prevailed from June 2010 to May 2011 in the Pacific." [Christian Wolff, Gerald H. Haug, Axel Timmermann, Jaap S. Sinninghe Damsté, Achim Brauer, Daniel M. Sigman, Mark A. Cane, Dirk Verschuren 2011: Science]
Additional drought/flood, severe-weather and peer-reviewed postings.