SYDNEY—The development of an El Nino weather pattern is
increasing and at this stage may be a medium-strength event, but it could take
months for it to be officially declared, Australia’s weather bureau said.
"We are warming reasonably rapidly. The models tend to
suggest something reasonably warm," said Andrew Watkins from Australia’s Bureau
of Meteorology, which issued its latest El Nino report on Wednesday.
"It doesn’t look weak, but then again it doesn’t look like it
will be at the levels of the 1997/1998 event either," he said.
The last severe El Nino in 1998 killed over 2,000 people and
caused billions of dollars worth of damage to crops, infrastructure and mines in
Australia and Asia. It struck in the middle of the Asian financial crisis which
roiled financial markets.
India, one of the world’s biggest producers and consumers of
everything from sugar to soybeans, is already experiencing weaker annual monsoon
rains. Its faltering sugar crop is a prime reason why sugar prices are at their
highest levels in three years.
An El Nino is also a major risk to wheat production in
Australia, palm oil output in Indonesia and Malaysia, and rubber in Thailand,
Malaysia and Indonesia. Output of palm oil and rubber has already fallen this
year due to adverse weather.
"Conditions have reached a point that, should they persist at
such levels through the remainder of the southern winter and into spring, 2009
will be considered an El Nino year," said the bureau’s report titled "Strong
indicators of El Nino persist."
The bureau said there was "very little chance of the current
development stalling or reversing."
The 2009 El Nino is developing as the world struggles to
emerge from the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression of 1929.
El Nino, meaning "little boy" in Spanish, is driven by an
abnormal warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean and creates havoc in weather
patterns across the Asia-Pacific region.
It is associated with drought conditions in parts of
Australia and Asia and wetter-than-normal weather in parts of South America.
"Most of the indicators show an El Nino is developing in the
Pacific. I would not say it is accelerating, but it’s definitely increased,"
Watkins told Reuters.
"The warm sea surface temperatures and the warm ocean
temperatures, looking at them instantaneously, if you arrived from the Moon
you’d probably say that looks like an El Nino," he said.
"I guess we are going fairly close to saying it is an El
Nino, but you have to be a little cautious because an El Nino is a longer
timeframe thing."- Reuters
