Marnie Chesterton

Michael, what about Kenya?

Yeah.

Yeah, no, that's really interesting because I feel like we're on the opposite end.

So you guys get more rains and we get less rains.

But I do remember 1997 and 1998 was especially bad.

We had really bad haze.

And I remember that because they actually shut school for a couple of days, which made me very happy.

So the 97-98 year sticks in a lot of people's minds as the first big super El Nino.

I think that's when it registered first on a lot of people's radars.

But I was looking into the figures.

El Nino in 2015-16 was...

caused over three trillion dollars in economic damage.

I was thinking that's a lot and are there lessons to be learned from the past?

Here's geographer at King's College London George Adamson.

Yes, so collapse of the Egyptian empire and the England cricket team.

George Adamson mentioned Peruvian civilisations, which is interesting because in Peru, Edgar Bracamonte is director of the Royal Tomb of Sipan Museum.

And for the BBC's climate show, The Climate Question, here he is explaining how an early civilisation, the Moche, dealt with El Niño.

Yes, I think that that's exactly it.

These Moche had their capital, I mean, a good 50 miles from the coast, I think.

And there is evidence that they moved their capital there in response to a massive flood.