Marnie Chesterton

So it ended, and wouldn't you know, Michael, a super El Nino event is implicated.

So there is this really fascinating suggestion from ice core research that the warmer climate meant that the usual snowfall fell as rain instead of snow, and where they'd moved their capital to...

They were in this place that needed melting snowfall off the mountain to supply their water.

And instead of that, they got a flood for 30 days and then a drought that lasted 30 years.

And that did for them in the end.

So combine the effects of climate change with this year's predicted El Nino event and 2027 is set to be the warmest year on record.

If there's anything we can do to prepare for the floods, the droughts and the wildfires being forecast, it's always cheaper than rebuilding afterwards.

We started with a shortage of a delicious kind of mango and we've finished with some pretty strong global predictions for a super El Nino coming everyone's way.

I'm going to ask you both to pick your top fact from the show.

Sandy Ong in Singapore, top fact that you've taken from today.

Oh gosh, it has to be that sea cucumbers expel their internal organs.

Michael Kaloki in Kenya, same to you.

Thank you both so much for joining me for some juicy chat.

I'm Marnie Chasterton.

The producer was Sophie Ormiston with Lucy Davis, Alice Lipscomb-Southwell and Robbie Wojciechowski.

Join us next week for more Unexpected Elements.

Have you ever looked at a map of the world and wondered why some borders seem to have been drawn with a ruler and pencil rather than any natural boundary formed by rivers, mountains or centuries of conflict between groups?

In Africa, there's no getting around the fact that this is due to colonialism.

Specifically, a conference in Berlin over Christmas 1884 when European countries carved up the continent.

In 1913, an attempt was made to draw a better border between Sudan and Uganda, in a mission involving a British official from each country.