Speaking to Today’s Zaman yesterday, Ecmel Arlat from Ege University’s geography department said to expect summer temperatures above seasonal norms as well as a dry summer. “This year is the year of El Nino. In other words, the energy stowed in the atmosphere is about to come back. The summer will be extremely hot, like in 1998,” Erlat said,Erlat said elements of climate such as heat and precipitation tended to change from year to year, based on changes that occur in the atmosphere. He said some of these changes occurred as regular fluctuations and oscillations. The best known of these is the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Changes in pressure over the Atlantic affect a vast area ranging from the Mediterranean basin and Europe to the east of the Americas. Erlat said a pressure system in the Atlantic named Azor was mostly responsible for periodic cycles. Studies by researcher Mojib Latif from Kiel University in Germany showed that Turkey should expect winters like this year’s for the next 15 to 20 years. He also said the summers would remain dry and desert like.
Erlat said there were many factors at work -- from human interference, carbon dioxide emissions and the number of sunspots as well as natural cycles -- that affect oceanic currents and temperatures. “The orchestra continues to play, but the instrument played by man can be heard louder now,” Erlat said to explain the effect of global climate change on atmospheric phenomena.
