Elnino is making a come back in 2014

[Hawk Eye]

It looks El nino is making a come back in 2014. This will have an impact in our Hydro Power and Plantation directly.

El Nino Making A Comeback in 2014
http://wuwf.org/post/el-nino-making-comeback-2014

Japan sees higher chance of El Nino this summer
http://news.yahoo.com/japan-sees-higher-chance-el-nino-summer-060329097.html

The articles also states that El nino can bring in uncertainties in commodity market and prices.

[SrirangaVeteran]

Welcome to the forum.

Thanks for sharing those valuable links.
  

[chinwiTop contributor]

If you consider our part of the world, the countries from  Malaysia to Australia , PNG ,Philippines etc. are the most affected if this phenomenon occurs.

We also get low rainfall than a normal year.

However , I think the location of our Island in the Indian ocean helps us to get inter monsoonal winds and clouds and receive some rains even in El Nion periods than other countries.

Not only hydro power, food production also get affected due to drought.


Thank you for opening a thread for this. We may study further in coming months.

[Hawk Eye]

If you consider our part of the world, the countries from  Malaysia to Australia , PNG ,Philippines etc. are the most affected if this phenomenon occurs.

We also get low rainfall than a normal year.

However , I think the location of our Island in the Indian ocean helps us to get inter monsoonal winds and clouds and receive some rains even in El Nion periods than other countries.

Not only hydro power, food production also get affected due to drought.


Thank you for opening a thread for this. We may study further in coming months.

The Direct impact and indirect impact both has to be considered....What is the indirect impact to our country by the countries directly affected

[BackstageTop contributor]

Drought in Malaysia and rain in Indonesia, decline in palm oil stock piles.
Drought in California and extreme weather in Brazil is increasing Soy bean prices.

Carsons palm oil output increasing year by year. Our resident Carsons scholar must be watching this.  

[BackstageTop contributor]

If you consider our part of the world, the countries from  Malaysia to Australia , PNG ,Philippines etc. are the most affected if this phenomenon occurs.

We also get low rainfall than a normal year.

However , I think the location of our Island in the Indian ocean helps us to get inter monsoonal winds and clouds and receive some rains even in El Nion periods than other countries.

Not only hydro power, food production also get affected due to drought.


Thank you for opening a thread for this. We may study further in coming months.

Chinwi , Sri Lankas two monsoon scenario makes it unique in the region doesn't it ? where other countries have just one dry season and one wet.

[sereneTop contributor]

Even here we cant predict the rain precisely as earlier.But Don't ask from Met department just refer the people in different areas.Tea, Paddy all are somewhat effected by these changes in climate.Hope all things will be in order.

[Hawk Eye]

Predictions for how the weather pattern could affect more than 60 cities, states, regions, and countries..

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/04/el_nino_2014_2015_what_the_weather_pattern_means_for_60_plus_places.html

[SrirangaVeteran]

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology expects the next El Nino cycle to occur this year

By Andrew Critchlow

Experts are warning of the probable return this summer of the El Nino weather cycle, bringing with it the usual climatic extremes of drought and floods across some of the world’s most fertile food-producing basins.

Occurring every five to 10 years, El Nino, which in Spanish translates to boy, usually means higher wholesale food prices for a range of staples and bullish agricultural commodity markets.

El Nino weather cycles are caused by high temperatures arising in the equatorial Pacific, which can have dramatic consequences on the climate around the world but especially on major agricultural producing areas. A severe El Nino in the early 1980s caused mass disruption for farmers, with floods hitting large areas of the southern states of America and bush fires devastating large parts of Australia.

In 1998 an El Nino pushed up global average temperatures to a record high and was thought to have cost $45bn (£26bn) in damage, killing an estimated 23,000 people around the world. The most recent El Nino cycle hit in 2009, bringing with it floods in California and severe drought conditions that hit crop production in Australia. Australia’s respected Bureau of Meteorology based in Melbourne now expects a new El Nino to hit sometime in the middle of this year.

“The likelihood of El Nino remains high, with all climate models surveyed by the bureau now indicating El Nino is likely to occur in 2014. Six of the seven models suggest El Nino thresholds may be exceeded as early as July,” the authority has warned. “El Nino has an impact across much of the world, including below-average rainfall in the western Pacific and Indonesian regions, and increased rainfall in the central and eastern Pacific.”

For Australia, El Nino is usually associated with below-average rainfall, with about two thirds of El Nino events since 1900 resulting in major drought over large areas,” said the bureau. Australia is the world’s seventh-largest agricultural exporter and a bellwether for soft commodity markets.

Therefore, investors in commodities are beginning to sit up and take notice of the possible impact that a new El Nino could have on global food production and prices.

“We may have to raise some of our near-term price forecasts for soft commodities,” said Capital Economics in a note to investors.

“However, El Nino is a transient event. We expect prices to resume their downward trajectory when weather conditions normalise. Thus any impact on inflation should be temporary.”

The price of soft commodities such as sugar, coffee and wheat will be particularly affected by the swings in weather that come will El Nino weather, warn brokers. “Today we are seeing weather risk creep into the [sugar] market,” said leading agricultural commodities broker Macquarie in a recent note to investors. “The first weather risk is the drought in Brazil. The second risk (though less impactful at this stage) is the growing chance of an El Nino developing in H2 of 2014. El Ninos are typically associated with weak monsoons in India, drier Australia and South East Asia, and wetter CS [Centre-South] Brazil – all of which carry bullish connotations for sugar.”

In India, economists are already warning that the rising food costs from the impact of an El Nino would probably make the country – the world’s second most populous after China – miss its inflation target and potentially damage overall economic growth.
Although the immediate impact of El Nino in the UK will be limited to commodity market investors, should the weather cycle cause too much rainfall in grain-producing areas, then poor harvests could push up animal feed prices, which in turn would have a dramatic effect on grocery prices.

“This [El Nino] is very important because it could have a huge impact on global grain markets,” warned Rabobank analyst Nan-Dirk Mulder at a farming conference last week.

Ukraine tension pushes up cost of grain and oil trading
Tougher sanctions against Russia have continued to spook commodity traders dealing in a broad range of asset classes.

As Russia started military exercises on the border with Ukraine and the US moved to tighten economic penalties on Moscow, Brent crude oil spiked briefly above $110 a barrel in trading at the end of last week.

Given Russia’s significance for global commodity markets, analysts are now expecting a prolonged period of volatility
until Moscow’s dispute with Kiev and the international community abates.

“Brent should remain well-supported because interruptions to oil and gas shipments from Russia can no longer be ruled out in the event of any further escalation,” Commerzbank has warned investors.

The German bank has also blamed the dispute for causing a spike last week in global grain prices. Russia and Ukraine combined account for about one fifth of global wheat supply and prices are expected to continue pushing recent highs until the political situation eases.

Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures hit a weekly high of $695 a bushel last week amid concern that unrest in Ukraine and the embargo on Russia would disrupt supplies. Analysts are also concerned that dry weather in America’s mid-West will hit harvests.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/10791422/Food-price-alert-as-experts-warn-of-new-El-Nino.html

[chinwiTop contributor]

Ammo !
we are getting La-Nina at the moment !

[BackstageTop contributor]

The Southwest monsoon is setting in, right on time (3rd week May). Hope it sustains through June/July

[chinwiTop contributor]

Yes, clouds are gathering again.
Due to drought prevailed in last few months coming qtr reports should be not impressive.
Sometimes prices may go down creating opportunities.

[SrirangaVeteran]

THE El Nino weather phenomenon, which can cause global famines, floods and even wars, has a 90% chance of striking this year, according to the latest forecast from Europe.

El Nino begins as a giant pool of warm water swelling in the eastern tropical Pacific that sets off a chain reaction of weather events around the world, some devastating and some beneficial.

India is expected to be the first to suffer, with weaker monsoon rains undermining the nation’s fragile food supply, followed by further scorching droughts in Australia and collapsing fisheries off South America.

But some regions could benefit, in particular the United States, where El Nino is seen as the “great wet hope”, bringing rains that could break the searing drought in the west.

The knock-on effects can impact even more widely, from cutting global gold prices to making England’s World Cup foot­ballers sweat a little more.

The latest prediction is from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts, which is considered one of the most reliable of the 15 or so prediction centres around the world.

“It is very much odds-on for an event,” said Tim Stockdale, principal scientist at the centre, who said 90% of their scenarios deliver an El Nino.

“The amount of warm water in the Pacific is now significant, perhaps the biggest since the 1997-98 event.”

That El Nino was the biggest in a century, producing the hottest year on record at the time and major global impacts, including a mass die-off of ­corals.

“But what is very much unknown at this stage is ­whether this year’s El Nino will be a small event, a ­moderate event – that’s most likely – or a really major event,” said Stockdale, adding that the picture will become clearer in the next month or two.

“It is which way the winds blow that determines what happens next and there is always a random element to the winds.”

The movement of hot, rain-bringing water to the eastern Pacific ramps up the risk of downpours in nations flanking that side of the great ocean, while the normally damp western flank dries out.

Governments, commodity traders, insurers and aid groups such as the Red Cross and World Food Programme all monitor developments closely. Water conservation and food stockpiling is already underway in some countries.

Prof Axel Timmermann, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii, argues that a major El Nino is more likely than not because of the specific pattern of winds and warm water being seen in the Pacific: “In the past, such alignments have always triggered strong El Nino events.”

El Nino events occur every five years or so, peaking in December and the first, and potentially greatest, human impacts are felt in India.

The reliance of its one billion-strong population on the monsoon, which usually sweeps up over the southern tip of the sub-continent around June 1, has led its monitoring to be dubbed “the most important weather forecast in the world”.

This year, it has got off to a delayed start, with the first week’s rains 40% below ­average.

“El Nino could be quite ­devastating for agriculture and the water supply in India,” said Dr Nick Klingaman, an El Nino expert at the University of Reading.

Research last month showed the global impact of El Nino events on food supplies, with corn, rice and wheat yield much lower than normal, though soybean harvests tend to rise.

While food production has improved in the last year, El Nino could reverse that trend, according to Leo Abruzzese, global forecasting director for the Economist Intelligence Unit.

“It may reduce agricultural output over the next few years, which could weigh on global food security.”

Drought linked to the 2007 El Nino led to a surge in food prices in 2008 that sparked riots in countries as far afield as Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti.

After India, El Nino’s impacts roll east and officials in Cebu, the Philippines’ second city, have urged all households to save water to reduce the impact of the drier weather due by the end of June.

In Malaysia, the national water authority is preparing for a dry spell of up to 18 months.

The hot, dry skies will then track to Australia, where 2013 was its hottest year.

Andrew Watkins, manager of climate prediction services at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, said: “El Nino is one of the largest influences on Australia’s climate.”

However, in the US, El Nino holds out the prospect of relief for the western states and nowhere is more desperate for rain than California.

The entire state is in severe or extreme drought, after receiving barely a quarter of its annual rainfall, and communities have been under water rations since March, ordinarily still the rainy ­season.

A strong El Nino would bring rain, typically double the annual average in southern California.

“I commonly refer to El Nino as the great wet hope,” said Bill Patzert, a climate ­scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

“Everyone in the west has their fingers crossed because we are bone dry.”

However, big El Ninos like the 1997-98 event – what Patzert calls “Godzillas” – are rare and forecasters at the US government’s climate prediction centre said on June 5 that time was running out for a significant El Nino to be set in train. — Guardian News & Media 2014
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/06/15/El-Nino-highly-likely-to-hit-this-year/

[BackstageTop contributor]

Monster El Niño Makes Record-Hot Year Look Inevitable
July 20, 2015
by Tom Randall
Thai Drought Pits Soldiers Against Farmers Flouting Water Curbs


This is a new kind of heat. In more than 135 years of global temperature data, four of the five hottest months on record all happened in 2015: February, March, May, and now June.

This has been the hottest start to a year by far, according to data released today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The record heat is likely to continue as an already strong El Niño weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean continues to intensify, ripping more heat into the atmosphere. This monster El Niño may itself be on track to break records.

The animation below shows the Earth's warming climate, recorded in monthly measurements from land and sea dating back to 1880. Temperatures are displayed in degrees above or below the 20th-century average. Thirteen of the 14 hottest years are in the 21st century, and 2015 is on track to raise the bar again.

Results from the world's top monitoring agencies vary slightly. NOAA and the Japan Meteorological Agency both had June as the hottest month on record. NASA had it as tied with June 1998 for the hottest. All three agencies agree that there has never been a hotter start to the year than the past six months.

The heat was experienced differently across the world, but few places escaped it altogether. The map below shows a few purple spots of cooler-than-average temperatures, and plenty of record-breaking red. The massive stretch of chart-topping heat in the Pacific Ocean is the footprint of El Niño.
Source: NOAA's National Climatic Data Center

This year's heat is a continuation of trends that made 2014 the hottest on record. The blistering start to 2015 may be just the beginning. The National Weather Service predicts that the unusually warm waters of the El Niño have a 90 percent chance of persisting through the 2015-2016 winter and an 80 percent chance of lasting through next spring.

The most powerful El Niño on record was in 1997-98. This year's may rival it. Even if it doesn't, 2015 is well on its way to breaking the heat record.
El Niño Is Coming Back: Here's What You Need to Know

[කිත්සිරි ද සිල්වාTop contributor]

Thanks Back.
Next big war will start for water and not for crude oil.
We have to think hard about how to preserve what is in abundance here today and about food security in time to come.

[BackstageTop contributor]

Monsoon Defies El Nino Forecasts Answering Prayers of Indian Farmers
by Prabhudatta MishraPratik Parija
July 29, 2015

Indian rice farmer Bhabani Shankar Panda credits the rain gods for proving weather forecasters wrong this year.

His prayers for plentiful showers have been answered, defying official forecasts for El Nino to cause the first back-to-back shortfall in the monsoon in three decades. While wet weather early in the season meant farmers increased crop sowing, prospects dimmed as rainfall tapered off earlier this month.

“Thank God, we do not have to worry about water this year,” said 45 year-old Panda from Sambalpur in India’s Odisha state, who grows paddy in his 20-acre farm. “I enjoy looking at my lush green field now.”

The monsoon’s revival from mid-July has boosted rice and soybean crops, curbing food price gains and easing concerns of shortages. India’s central bank has said it’s closely watching the rains after identifying a monsoon shortfall as the biggest risk to the economy, where agriculture accounts for about 15 percent of gross domestic product. The country depends on rain to water half of its crop land.

“The nation is heaving a collective sigh of relief as the performance of monsoon is better than what was forecast,” said Soumyajit Niyogi, an interest-rate strategist at SBI DFHI Ltd. in Mumbai. “Better agriculture output will provide much needed room for the central bank to further cut rates.”
Ocean Warming

Lower interest rates may support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to accelerate economic growth in Asia’s third-largest economy. Central bank Governor Raghuram Rajan, who cut borrowing costs three times this year, has said further action hinges on the monsoon.

Halfway through the four-month rainy season that began in June, the first El Nino since 2010 has failed to make much of a dent. Unusual warming of the Indian Ocean may have helped counter the impact of El Nino on monsoon and aided better rain, according to Commodity Weather Group LLC. The India Meteorological Department last month predicted monsoon rain would fall short, reaching 88 percent of a 50-year average.

This year’s El Nino is building strength unabated, indicating it will continue into next year, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said July 21. El Ninos can disrupt harvests around the globe by baking parts of Asia, dumping rain across South America and bringing cooler summers to North America.
Bumper Harvests

Showers through July 28 are just 3 percent below normal and more than 75 percent of India has received excess or normal rain, according to the department. That’s increased chances of bigger harvests of oilseeds and lentils, Modi said in a radio address July 26. Monsoon crops account for about 50 percent of the nation’s total food grain production.

The area under crops from rice to corn and soybeans jumped 26 percent to 69.4 million hectares (171.5 million acres) as of July 24 from a year earlier, Agriculture Ministry data show.

Bumper production also spells good news for companies from smart-phone makers to jewelry retailers, which depend on rural India for the bulk of their sales. Panda, the farmer, hopes to harvest as much as 35 metric tons of rice this year and plans to buy more land and drill a bore well to expand his water source.

India’s food grain output including rice and wheat fell 5.3 percent to 251.1 million tons in 2014-15, when monsoon rainfall was 12 percent below average, according to the Agriculture Ministry.

[Hawk Eye]

All Signs Indicate a New Monster El Niño Is Coming

http://io9.com/all-signs-indicate-a-new-monster-el-nino-is-coming-1722216118