after that. >> what kinda ice-cream? >> i don't know, you gotta ask them. i... all i know is they had a choice of 33 flavors. (laughs). >> el niño, a cyclical pattern of warm winds and moist air has the potential to bring wild weather worldwide. this year may be a ferocious el niño year on its way. one bad boy, that's the "inside story."

>> welcome to inside story. i'm ray suarez. that name el niño is a spanish term of endearment for the christ child as people in the latin region weather notice the weather effects at christmastime. this year that baby may not be sleeping in heavenly peace. the set of phenomenon involving ocean water, wind patterns and atmospheric effects. >> this is what five inches of rain in a single hour does to a drought-baked i will side. but that's nothing if el niño arrives. >> take those small events and let it rain longer, and that gives you an image of how things could go badly. >> an expert on california's

rivers and water supply. >> we're not ready as a state for a for a very large flood. >> to keep floodwaters under control california has 13,000 miles of levies. a katrina type disaster poised to flood california. >> there are two kinds of levies. those that have failed and those that will fail. eventually the levy system will be overwhelmed. the question is this the year that the levy system is overwhelmed. >> the delta outside of sacramento encompasses 1,000 miles of waterways, home to thousands of people and the state capital. an engineer with the california department of water resources, he spots a major levy repair going on here, and he shows it to us it's a fix that costs $5 million to $10 million per mile.

it's a rehab that rarely happens. >> something of this scale maybe once a decade. >> repairs are crucial. for decades report after report has warned of levy breaks in the delta. there is one area mike is particularly worried about. >> we're working our way up to sea level here. a portion of this island is located at sea level. >> at first it's not clear what the problem is. >> this is a peaceful settic, but you're talking about this being ground zero, why is that? >> this one of the lowest points of the system, and i wouldn't be surprised to have waves crashing over the levies. >> that's unimaginable. >> given a strong enough storm that may be a reality with catastrophic results. mother nature may be giving a one-two punch. first a drought and then an el niño. but it's not just mother nature that is to blame.

it's decades of neglect. >> we stopped paying for this year's ago. why should we be shocked, have the nerve to be surprised that these systems are falling down around our ears. we chose not to pay for it. >> the truth is california and the nation will pay one way or another. the question is whether the bill comes due this winter. jacob ward, al jazeera, sacramento. >> one bad little boy. this year's el niño this time on the program joining me for a look at this periodic natural event, william, a research scientist and oceanographer with nasa, and and james, a historic climatologist analyst. and we'll talk just about what that is. but william, let's start with you.

we know this begins with a big band of warm weather that stretches roughly east-west from ecuador to peru. let's walk back a step and ask why all that warm weather is there in the first place? >> well, ray, normally trade winds blow from the americas to asia, and they pile up vast amounts of warm water off the asian continent. but when those trade winds relax all that warm washington--all that warm water surges back to the americas. and we have an area two and a half times the continental united states where the temperatures are exceedingly high, sea level has risen, and actually an impact that began early in the summer in asia, africa, and south america, so this bad boy has had a big impact already. >> so, can we project forward

when we see something like chenai on the east coast of india, which normally gets 55 inches of rain through a season, and now in a period of six weeks one-third the time it already has 60 inches of rain. is it automatic that we're going to get punched in the nose, too? or do we have to wait and see? >> it's interesting because this year we have the october to november indicators for el niño. this is the third warmest on record since the 1950s. so it's going to pack a powerful punch, and historical records suggest that could bring a lot of rain to the southern tier states including parts of california, which is desperately needed for the drought. however, it could also bring very mild conditions to the northeast. we're already seeing that parts of continental united states had the hottest december on record--or temperatures recently on record. the october to november

temperatures, so basically the fall in the continental united states is the hottest since they've been keeping records. that's a typical el niño pattern. we also have very low sea highs ihighs--sea ice in the arctic. so the battle between el niño and the arctic is really going to be interesting this winter to see which dominates some suggest el niño will be very powerful in the early parts of the winter. >> when you look at the indicate at a coming in from around the world, what do models and past performance tell us? >> it speaks very accurately. what we see with this el niño, and mind you every el niño is different, and there is activity

occurring that could effect the el niño. we get more precipitation. caller temperatures in the southeast regions of the u.s. we get dryer conditions, warmer conditions in the northeast. in the northeast we're looking at a double-dipped winter, we like to call it, where you get the storminess in the beginning, a dry winter in the middle and then it gets stormy in the end. when we look globally we look at the commodities being prepared over wintertime. the further northern we get we look at russia and china, more dry conditions, less pre pre- pre-precipitation el niño makes things more extreme. the storms are stronger.

the droughts are stronger and it makes it that much more difficult to determine what is happening, and it usually will happen in a shorter, fiercer amount of time. >> we live in a world awash in data. air currents, relative humidity, regional temperatures. can we know when an el niño year is coming and based on the planet's past performance, figure out whether what is come something particularly harsh? el niño, one bad little boy. it's "inside story."

>> we're here to fully get into the nuances of everything that's going on, not just in this country, but around the world. getting the news from the people who are affected. >> people need to demand reform... >> ali velshi on target.

>> you're watching inside story. i'm ray suarez. one bad little boy this time on the program, floods, warm air, drought. people who watch natural events for a living have talked about a godzilla el niño this season. what makes this natural phenomenon more powerful in some cycles milder in others. brett, james, and william are still with me. the warm ocean water was warmer,

if i understand this correctly, and warmer earlier. what does that tell us about what is on its way? >> well, partnership this look at california here i, the last two really large el niños, the winter of 1983, and the winter of 1998, we essentially doubled our normal rainfall up and down the state of california, and what was really sweet, we doubled our snowpack. but along with that there was tremendous flooding, mudslides and just general havoc. people forget the previous two el niños were not pr proceeded by a drought as this one has. this has been billed the great

wet hulk. but this is no drought buster. it took many years to get into this drought, and one furious el niño is not going to take us out of the drought. >> it is not a neutral participant in this drama. the hillsides are dryer, the soil is looser. there have been brushfires that have burned a lot of the vegetation that covers hillsides and flat land. so when the rain finally comes, it won't just gently percolate into the ground. it will wash away and cause mudslides. >> absolutely. those hillsides are like concrete right now. we had a fierce fire season following four really dry years. so for people who are living

below the hillsides it will come rushing off those hillsides. everyone who is living below the mountains is essentially living in a flood plan plain, so it will be a wild ride. >> can you really prepare to be socked by heavier than average rain? what can you do to protect yourself? >> well, a lot of times what we provide is the ability for people to be proactive instead of reactive. a lot of damage that comes from a severe storm is that it catches people by surprise. they're not prepared and ready for when it happens. we speak to so many different industries. every industry can appropriate differently. agriculturecally they can attempt to build dams or ditches around areas to maybe collect rain and offset the potentialities of flood. they can plant coming in spring crops that are better for that rainfall. insurance companies can make policies that are better

prepared for more flooding and more damage from storms, which is more prevalent in cities during el niños, and it can keep going from there from how you would invest if you know that areas are going to get bad flooding. how you can prepare for really cold, really warm winters when it comes to what you're going to sell in your stores, or in your catalogs. so it can differ from industry to industry, but the biggest aspect is that you have knowledge. and with that you're able to react ahead of time and prepared instead of being cold cuffed by the storms. >> with all that we know, with all that we can measure, are we any better at knowing how bad these things are going to be? how long they're going to last, what's going to follow them, or is there an ex-factor, an element of unpredictability about all of this? >> one aspect is that just with el niño that has been immense from farming and fishing off of

south america to north america, the united states, indonesia, all the places you mentioned that can prepare for the seasonal changes that noaa and nasa are providing with satellite information. the buoy sensors, it's phenomenal. what we're not prepared for is the added warm that climate change has added on. so these droughts are hotter than before. that means our reservoirs in the western united states are evaporating much faster. that means we need to deal with different reservoir planning, we also have to deal with these wildfires that are cooking the soil not only laying them bare but making them hydrophobic. i have students work on this, and in fact, it accelerates the run off and it will not percolate once there is a highly

cooked soil. we need longer, stronger fire season in the west creating more extreme conditions than our infrastructure built in the last century can really with stand. we have to prepare for this, and i agree with the speakers on that front. >> we're talking about this year's el niño, one bad little boy. stay with us. this is inside story. the nuances of everything that's going on, not just in this country, but around the world. >> what, as if there were no cameras here, would be the best solution? >> this goes to the heart of the argument. >> to tell you the stories that others won't cover. how big do you see this getting? getting the news from the people who are affected. >> people need to demand reform... >> we're here to provide the analysis... the context... and the reporting that allows you to make sense of your world. >> ali velshi on target.

>> welcome back to inside story. i'm ray suarez. sure, el niño is a periodic phenomenon, and as we heard we've heard a lot about the underlying natural causes that set them off and shape their severity. but what if we start off with a warmer ocean? what if we begin a cycle with already altered wind patterns, energy in the atmosphere, humidity, and so on on a planet that scientists are saying is dealing with altered conditions. do el niños get more extreme? more mild, stop all together? james, william, brenda are still with me. just before the break you were talking about the effects that climate change may have. of course, you don't have to

climb as high if you're already dealing with a warm ocean. so does that slow down the phenomenon? stop it? make it more severe? >> what we see is some of the latest research is suggesting that el niño conditions could be a more prevalent feature in a warming world. some of those intense precipitation events that might happen after a period of the california and the western u.s. dealing with drought means you could have more flood risk potentially. you're changing the risk factors and loading the dice. they need much better prediction and science to prepare for those events so we stay away from those streams and we do not let them swell and become flash flooding events. i saw people who lived around dry washes in arizona after a big wildfire on top of the mountain and those rains came that were very intense, and unfortunately people lost their cars, some unfortunately lost

their lives because they had lived theory 30 years and never saw such a flash flooding. we're seeing things outside of the extremes that we've seen before. we've increased the wackiness of the weather and the extremes, and we have to be better about protecting lives and property. >> james, i can name one place that does not buy your newsletter, my local department store. i was there shopping there with my daughter. it's full of coats and it's going to be 70 degrees in washington, and they don't know what to do with all those coats. is it getting tougher to do business in a less patterned normative world? >> well, of course it is. unfortunately, with not just with the el niño, but with several different cycles that we're currently experiencing, they're different than the way they were in the 70s, 80s, and into the 90s, when the mid

90s when we started to see the changes. a lot of the da data that we utilize based on models of what to sell, what to plant, what to invest in, the data is inaccurate. it is old news. we have a new normal. not only do we have a new normal, but we have shorter things of el niños, volcanic eruptions that can also change those patterns. unfortunately, what we have at this point is a much more difficult time frame to look at and determine what is going to sell, what we should invest in because we have changed from a lot of the data that people are using over the past 40 to 50 years. >> william, how do we know that this el niño is not going to be the y 2 k of swine flu of el niños? you talked about this one as being almost a can fail lead

pipe cinch. >> i named it the godzilla of el niños, and i said it was too big to fail. if this el niño doesn't deliver i'm going to have to go into a protection witness program. [ chuckling ] what we've seen from past episodes like this, as we get into january and february we should see a sub tropical jet stream that shifts north and delivers a convoy of storms across the southern tier of the united states hitting california, the southwest, texas, and getting pumped up, and it has a particularly large impact over florida. whereas the northern tier of the united states will be relatively mild later in the winter, and that has all those things have big economic impacts across the country. >> what happens afterwards?

>> well, afterwards, you know, el niño only lasts for about a year. but in many of these big el niños the trade winds come back with a vengeance, the equatorial pacific turns very cool, and what shows up is what known as la nina, the dry sibling of el niño, and we go back to drought across the southern tier of the united states, and fierce winters across the northern tier of the united states. it's a whiplash if la nina follows a particularly punishing el niño. >> brenda, as much as we wouldn't wish bad events on anybody, does this at least contextualize the conversation about climate change? can we have a more serious conversation when we remind people that they're part of the natural environment, that they

have--they don't just hold nature up at arm's length, they live in it? >> absolutely. we are part of the environment. humans are affecting the environment that we live in, and we're being effected by the consequences of this warming world. as this weather whiplash is effecting pocketbooks and business decisions. people with ski resorts that have to transform those ski resorts into three season ski resorts figuring out summer activities and activities that with seasons that last longer. information is key. there are three and four indicators that people should watch. there are some possibilities some scientists say at the end of the winter some of the shenanigans going on in the arctic will come down. they suddenly see this arctic blast come down as the polar jet

stream comes wavier, and some people are looking at that, and we don't whether this godzilla of an el niño, i like that term, whether that dominates or whether the arctic could come back and give a late-season february-march surprise. >> i want to thank my guests. brenda at the union of concern scientists. james, a historical climatolog climatological analyst and william, research and oceanographer with nasa. i'll be back with a final thought on weather and exposure to risk. stay with us. this is inside story. >> coming up at 7:00 p.m. eastern on al jazeera america, finding common ground. world leaders reach a draft agreement on a road map for peace in syria. the president holds the year-end news conference, what he said on syria, guantanamo and san

bernardino. the changing face of black twists in chicago. five days in chicago. and the making of a saint, vatican approves mother teresa for canonization. all that and much more coming up tonight at 7:00.

>> some of the saddest stories i've ever done as a reporter involved floods. accompanying people into their recognized homes as they survey the soddened damage and realize in rising horror just how much they've lost. you would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved and reminded of how hard it is to rebuilding your material life over from scratch. from much of ther of a rising concern over global climate change the u.s. has been blessed by circumstance and geography. for most 21st century americans the remarkable thing is not how intimately we're connected to

the nature around us, just the opposite, barreling down the highway with the ac on full blast. punching holes in the ground to drain aquifers when the rains don't fall, we're rich and technologically advance enough to soften mother nature's blow--post of the time. it may provide an opportunity to reflect on the limits of our ability to simply do an end run around the natural world, the moldives worried about disappearing under a rising ocean. green land's glaciers alaskan villages sliding into the sea. for most of us it's a low-risk proposition. but if mother nature says do i have your attention now? just maybe it can make the debates we have on our

challenges a little more serious. i'm ray suarez. that's the inside story. >> this is al jazeera america. live from new york, i'm tony harris. the reaching an agreement on syria. year-end news conference the president talks isil, syria, guantanamo and gives kudos to the new house speaker. becoming a saint the pope recognizes a second miracle from mother teresa, and changing of the guard. a