|
|
Article: EL NINO WASN'T SUCH A BAD BOY, ACCORDING TO ONE CLIMATOLOGIST.(News)
- Article from:
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- Article date:
- September 2, 1999
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the Dialog Corporation by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Despite all of the bad publicity, last year's El Nino may have saved hundreds of lives and was a major boon to the economy, a new study by a leading climatologist indicates.
``If you treat it as an economic outcome for the country . . . most of the country benefited,'' says consulting climatologist Stanley Changnon.
Overall, the 1997-98 El Nino can be blamed for 189 deaths. But it saved nearly 850 lives that would otherwise have been lost, Changnon concluded.
And its $4.2 billion to $4.5 billion in damage is far outweighed by nearly $20 billion in benefits, Changnon reports in the September issue of the Bulletin of the American ...