El Nino is back

Straits Times 11 Jul 09;

THE monsoon season has arrived in India, bringing rain and floods, but experts there are already warning of water shortages ahead.

Farmers in Australia and Asia are being told to brace themselves for dry spells and parched fields, a prospect that is making commodity traders jittery.

In Singapore, the National Environment Agency (NEA) says to expect drier, hotter days.

El Nino is back.

The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has confirmed the arrival of the dreaded weather phenomenon associated with warming Pacific Ocean waters.

The news on Thursday has had not just weathermen, but also traders and agricultural officials, on the alert because in the past, El Nino has wreaked meteorological havoc from Asia to America.

The last time it arrived in a big way, in 1998, it left more than 2,000 people dead and caused billions of dollars in damage to crops.

El Nino occurs on average every two to five years and typically lasts about 12 months.

Announcing its return, NOAA official Jane Lubchenco said the agency plans to provide frequent updates about El Nino-related weather conditions to industries, governments and emergency officials so that they can plan for ways to protect life, property and the economy.

The agency said the impact of El Nino is likely to strengthen over coming months before dissipating sometime early next year.

Dr Koh Tieh Yong, a climate expert at Nanyang Technological University, said the risk of forest fires in the region is increased with hotter temperatures, drier conditions and stronger winds. Haze in the region could also be a potential problem.

This El Nino is striking just as global economies are struggling to overcome the impact of the world's worst financial crisis since the Great Depression in 1929.

India is already feeling the effects. While the annual monsoon has arrived, it is weaker than usual.

Already the country's faltering sugar crop has helped drive world prices of the commodity to their highest in three years.

Rainfall has been 50 per cent below normal in the north-west from June 1 to July 8, the India Meteorological Department said this week.

In Mumbai, the authorities are considering cloud seeding to induce more rain to fill depleted reservoirs.

According to a US agricultural attache report, India may be hit by a severe drought and a poor harvest if the monsoon remains weak, with the planting season for its major crops like soya bean, rice and sugar expected to close by around mid-month.

Farther afield, an El Nino-spawned drought would pose a major risk to wheat production in Australia, affect palm oil output in major producers Malaysia and Indonesia, and hit rice production in the Philippines, the world's biggest importer of the staple.

An El Nino-induced dry spell in South America may also hit soya bean exports from Argentina and Brazil to China at a time when US soya bean stocks are at a 32-year low - less than two weeks of normal commercial supplies.

Adding to the prognosis of a rise in food prices, cocoa futures in New York on Thursday jumped more than 5 per cent amid jitters that El Nino could affect cocoa supply, much of which comes from Indonesia and West Africa.

Food output aside, a strong El Nino could also affect crude oil and natural gas markets, as the phenomenon usually means a warmer winter in the US, the world's largest oil consumer, and fewer hurricanes hitting the energy-rich US Gulf of Mexico.

Severe floods may disrupt mining operations in Chile, the world's biggest copper producer, and Peru, among others.

Peruvian fisherman originally used the term El Nino - a Spanish reference to the Christ child - to describe the warming of ocean currents off the South American coast around Christmas time.

El Nino's impact has varied according to a variety of factors, including the intensity and extent of ocean warming.

For now, weather watchers such as those at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology believe that the current one may not be as devastating as that of 1998.

'It doesn't look weak, but then again, it doesn't look like it will be at the levels of 1997/98 either,' said the bureau's Andrew Watkins in Sydney.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG