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El Nino Returns as Australia Declares First Event Since ’10
El Nino Returns as Australia Declares First Event Since ’10
13/05/2015 (Bloomberg) - El Nino is back. Australia has declared the event for the first time since 2010 and says it will probably be “substantial.” Japan also said El Nino has emerged.
The tropical Pacific is in the early stages of the pattern that can bring drought to parts of Asia and rains to South America, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said Tuesday. Ocean temperatures will probably stay above thresholds through the Southern Hemisphere winter and at least into spring.
The last El Nino was from 2009 to 2010 and the Pacific has either been in its cooler state called La Nina or neutral since then. The pattern can crimp the hurricane season in the Atlantic, bring more rain across the southern U.S. and warm some northern states. It heralds a drier winter and spring in Australia’s east. Warm anomalies in the Pacific in March and April were very similar to those observed in 1997, a year of an “intense” El Nino, Meteo-France said last month.
“It’s come on quickly and all of our model guidance predicts it’s going to continue to strengthen,” David Jones, manager of climate monitoring and prediction at the bureau, said by phone. “A significant or substantial event is likely.”
The effects have been felt already. Morgan Stanley said in December that weather in South America for much of the previous month had been typical of an El Nino, citing above-normal rain in Argentina and southern Brazil and dry conditions in northeast Brazil. Palm oil, cocoa, coffee and sugar are the crops most at risk, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. last year.
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Indian Monsoon
The monsoon in India, the world’s second-biggest producer of sugar and wheat, may be below normal for a second year as the event develops, according to Harsh Vardhan, the country’s minister of science and technology and earth sciences. El Nino is causing dryness in the Philippines, Oil World, a Hamburg-based researcher, said this month.
“Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean have exceeded El Nino thresholds for the past month,” the bureau said on its website. “Trade winds have remained consistently weaker-than-average since the start of the year, cloudiness at the Date Line has increased and the Southern Oscillation Index has remained negative for several months.”
While El Nino increases the risk of drought in Australia, it’s not guaranteed, according to the bureau. Of the 26 events since 1900, 17 have resulted in widespread drought, it said.
Cropping Areas
Farmers in eastern Australia will be keeping an eye on the forecast with planting of winter crops including wheat, barley and canola under way. Wheat production in the world’s fifth-biggest exporter is set to increase 3.3 percent this year to 24.4 million metric tons, the government said in March.
“I don’t necessarily think it will sway people, given how good the start’s been in most cropping areas around Australia,” Graydon Chong, an analyst at Rabobank International, said from Sydney. “It will have people worried if we continue to see a strengthening El Nino toward the second half of the year.”
An El Nino also raises the odds for a cooler U.S. summer, said Matt Rogers, president of Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland.
It can also raise the possibilities for more hurricanes in the eastern Pacific and typhoons to the west, he said. Storm warnings are currently posted on parts of Japan’s east coast as the remains of Typhoon Noul sweep past.
Storm Dolphin
Further east, Tropical Storm Dolphin, forecast to become a typhoon Wednesday, was about 870 miles southeast of Guam, according to the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Australia had raised the possibility of an El Nino for most of 2014 before tempering forecasts as changes to the atmosphere failed to develop consistently. The Bureau of Meteorology revived its prediction in March as the Pacific warmed. Japan’s weather agency said on Tuesday that the event is likely to persist through the Northern Hemisphere’s autumn.
Palm oil futures climbed as much as 1.6 percent to the highest level in five weeks in Kuala Lumpur on concern that dry weather spurred by El Nino would curb yields in Indonesia and Malaysia, which account for 86 percent of world supplies. Indonesian production dropped 7.1 percent and Malaysian output fell 5.5 percent at the time of the last strong El Nino in 1997-1998, U.S. Agriculture Department data show.
The U.S. Climate Prediction Center said that a weak El Nino developed in February and there’s a 70 percent chance the pattern will continue through the Northern Hemisphere summer. The agency will issue an update to its forecast on Thursday.
“We look at about 10 climate models and they agree entirely,” said Jones from the Australian weather bureau. “We know that once an El Nino event’s established, it’s very likely to last through to the end of the year.”
The tropical Pacific is in the early stages of the pattern that can bring drought to parts of Asia and rains to South America, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said Tuesday. Ocean temperatures will probably stay above thresholds through the Southern Hemisphere winter and at least into spring.
The last El Nino was from 2009 to 2010 and the Pacific has either been in its cooler state called La Nina or neutral since then. The pattern can crimp the hurricane season in the Atlantic, bring more rain across the southern U.S. and warm some northern states. It heralds a drier winter and spring in Australia’s east. Warm anomalies in the Pacific in March and April were very similar to those observed in 1997, a year of an “intense” El Nino, Meteo-France said last month.
“It’s come on quickly and all of our model guidance predicts it’s going to continue to strengthen,” David Jones, manager of climate monitoring and prediction at the bureau, said by phone. “A significant or substantial event is likely.”
The effects have been felt already. Morgan Stanley said in December that weather in South America for much of the previous month had been typical of an El Nino, citing above-normal rain in Argentina and southern Brazil and dry conditions in northeast Brazil. Palm oil, cocoa, coffee and sugar are the crops most at risk, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. last year.
]
Indian Monsoon
The monsoon in India, the world’s second-biggest producer of sugar and wheat, may be below normal for a second year as the event develops, according to Harsh Vardhan, the country’s minister of science and technology and earth sciences. El Nino is causing dryness in the Philippines, Oil World, a Hamburg-based researcher, said this month.
“Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean have exceeded El Nino thresholds for the past month,” the bureau said on its website. “Trade winds have remained consistently weaker-than-average since the start of the year, cloudiness at the Date Line has increased and the Southern Oscillation Index has remained negative for several months.”
While El Nino increases the risk of drought in Australia, it’s not guaranteed, according to the bureau. Of the 26 events since 1900, 17 have resulted in widespread drought, it said.
Cropping Areas
Farmers in eastern Australia will be keeping an eye on the forecast with planting of winter crops including wheat, barley and canola under way. Wheat production in the world’s fifth-biggest exporter is set to increase 3.3 percent this year to 24.4 million metric tons, the government said in March.
“I don’t necessarily think it will sway people, given how good the start’s been in most cropping areas around Australia,” Graydon Chong, an analyst at Rabobank International, said from Sydney. “It will have people worried if we continue to see a strengthening El Nino toward the second half of the year.”
An El Nino also raises the odds for a cooler U.S. summer, said Matt Rogers, president of Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland.
It can also raise the possibilities for more hurricanes in the eastern Pacific and typhoons to the west, he said. Storm warnings are currently posted on parts of Japan’s east coast as the remains of Typhoon Noul sweep past.
Storm Dolphin
Further east, Tropical Storm Dolphin, forecast to become a typhoon Wednesday, was about 870 miles southeast of Guam, according to the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Australia had raised the possibility of an El Nino for most of 2014 before tempering forecasts as changes to the atmosphere failed to develop consistently. The Bureau of Meteorology revived its prediction in March as the Pacific warmed. Japan’s weather agency said on Tuesday that the event is likely to persist through the Northern Hemisphere’s autumn.
Palm oil futures climbed as much as 1.6 percent to the highest level in five weeks in Kuala Lumpur on concern that dry weather spurred by El Nino would curb yields in Indonesia and Malaysia, which account for 86 percent of world supplies. Indonesian production dropped 7.1 percent and Malaysian output fell 5.5 percent at the time of the last strong El Nino in 1997-1998, U.S. Agriculture Department data show.
The U.S. Climate Prediction Center said that a weak El Nino developed in February and there’s a 70 percent chance the pattern will continue through the Northern Hemisphere summer. The agency will issue an update to its forecast on Thursday.
“We look at about 10 climate models and they agree entirely,” said Jones from the Australian weather bureau. “We know that once an El Nino event’s established, it’s very likely to last through to the end of the year.”