This nexus brief focuses on the phenomenon of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and in particular on the 2015/2016 El Niño event, which faded out in May 2016 but has impacts and effects on environmental and societal systems that will extend well into 2017.

Widespread drought severely affects crops and rangelands in East Africa and food insecurity is expected to significantly deteriorate by early 2017. Major areas of concern are central and southern Somalia, southeastern Ethiopia, northern and eastern Kenya, northern and eastern United Republic of Tanzania and southeastern Uganda.

Zimbabwean smallholder farmers consider seed security to be an issue of national security. For them, access to the right seeds at the right time, and for the right price, is critical to being able to produce enough food to eat in the face of growing climate disruption.

Scientists estimate that anthropogenic climate change leads to increased surface temperature, sea-level rise, more frequent and significant extreme weather and climate events, among others. This study investigate how climate change can potentially change the vulnerability to poverty using a panel data set in Indonesia.

This fifth edition of explaining extreme events of the previous year (2015) from a climate perspective continues to provide evidence that climate change is altering some extreme event risk.

Major atmospheric-driven catastrophes, such as hurricanes and floods, may appear to be independent events when looked at historically. Yet it is well established in climate science that regional weather and climate conditions in one part of the world can have impacts on other parts.