Australia's El Nino watch turns into alert, know impact on India's monsoon

May 2023 Sea Surface Temperature (SST) representative image

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has raised concerns over the likelihood of the El Niño weather pattern developing over the island country, issuing an "alert" after the necessary criteria were met. The El Niño "watch" was initially issued in April 2023, but the recent update underscores a 70 percent chance of El Niño occurring this year, according to the BoM.

Climatologist Catherine Ganter remarked, “there is an increasing likelihood of the tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures reaching El Niño levels during winter. The shifting atmospheric conditions towards El Niño patterns further reinforce the concerns raised by the BoM.”

El Niño is a climate pattern characterised by the abnormal warming of surface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. It is a part of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon, which plays a significant role in driving global weather patterns. The Oceanic Nino Index (ONI), based on sea surface temperature (SST) deviations from average in the Nino 3.4 region, serves as the principal measure for monitoring, assessing, and predicting ENSO conditions, as reported by Skymet.

Understanding the intricate dynamics of El Niño and its broader implications remains a complex task due to the multitude of factors at play.

According to Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the US, the role of global warming in influencing El Niño and its consequences is still being researched. Variables such as smoke from Australian wildfires in 2019 and 2020 may have played a role.

With the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's "alert" for the potential development of El Niño, the international community is closely monitoring the situation as the implications of an El Niño event extend beyond Australia, with potentially far-reaching consequences for various regions worldwide. India, for instance, heavily relies on the monsoon season, which defines the purchasing power of millions of farmers.

Former agriculture secretary Siraj Hussain, in an interview with Bloomberg Television said “If the monsoon is deficient, as is being projected due to El Niño by various global models, then there may be some difficulty in the un-irrigated parts of India. About half of the country’s farmlands are rain-fed, and that’s where the impact will come”.

A deficit in monsoon rains from June to September could adversely impact India’s crop output, fuel food inflation, and even lead to further restrictions on the export of vital commodities such as wheat, rice, and sugar. “The government has rightly restricted exports of commodities such as wheat and rice as surpluses are very marginal, and even a small weather event could affect supplies,” Hussain added.

El Niño events have historically had a profound impact on different parts of the world. While the Pacific coast of the Americas, from California to Chile and across to Argentina, typically experiences heavy rainfall during El Niño, other regions face contrasting conditions. Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and northern Brazil often encounter dry weather during El Niño, leading to adverse effects on agriculture and an increased risk of wildfires. In the past, El Niño has also disrupted the Indian monsoon, resulting in drought-like conditions, and adversely affecting the production of key crops in countries such as Ivory Coast, Thailand, and Indonesia.

The 2015-16 El Niño event, one of the strongest since the record-breaking occurrence in 1997-98, brought devastating floods to the US Midwest, exacerbating the economic challenges faced by the region. In contrast, Argentina, currently grappling with a severe drought, could potentially benefit from increased rainfall associated with El Niño.