Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Jun 30, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Jun 30, 2005 |
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Agri-Biz & Commodities
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Climate & Weather Chances of El Nino event recede further Vinson Kurian
Thiruvananthapuram , June 29 THE Australian Bureau of Meteorology has said in its latest update that there is "little sign of a trigger" to establish a classical Pacific Ocean El Nino in the near term, though some (but not all) indicators remain near the threshold levels. "As we now approach the end of June with no event present, history tells us that the risk of an El Nino occurring during the remainder of the year will reduce rapidly," the bureau said in its update on Wednesday. El Nino refers to a sustained warming over a large part of the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Combined with this warming are changes in the atmosphere that affect weather patterns across much of the Pacific Basin, and even beyond. Though no direct one-to-one connection has been established so far, a Pacific Ocean El Nino has been known to have some cascading effect on the prevailing Indian monsoon. Ruling out an El Nino would in effect help weathermen wish away a possible monsoon irritant. The update said past two weeks have brought a substantial increase in the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) value (pressure differential between Darwin and Tahiti) from around -15 to the present 30-day value of near zero. Lower SOI values have been associated with increased chances of an El Nino event. Other indicators have remained steady through the past fortnight. Trade winds remain near normal, as do tropical cloudiness and subsurface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean. The trade winds and clouds suggest that currently there are no substantial feedbacks occurring in the atmospheric circulation that promote further El Nino development. Indicators from the Indian Ocean also suggest a low chance of conditions favourable to El Nino development moving into the Pacific region in the near future. Ten out of 12 international computer models predict neutral eastern Pacific conditions in November 2005, with one model predicting warm conditions and one cool. Cloudiness near the dateline in the central Pacific is another important indicator of El Nino, as it normally increases during these episodes with a return to near-average values during the decay phase. Cloudiness on and east of the dateline has been mostly below average during June.
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