Oh no! Not that boy again!

India's meteorological department published yesterday, it's yearly predictions about the monsoon rainy season 2015 and the predictions are not at all that comforting. According to IMD's long range predictions, the monsoon seasonal rainfall is likely to be 93% of the long-period average with a model error of plus or minus 5%. It expects below normal rainfall for the upcoming monsoon season with a 33% probability of rains being less than 90%, commonly referred to as a drought. This would mean that for second successive year, the rainfall will be deficient.

IMD says that there is a 35% probability of a 'below normal' monsoon with rains in the 90% to 96% range. The odds on normal rains (96%-104%) were placed at 28%, while there was a worrying 33% chance that rains could slip below the 90% mark. This appears to be nothing else but statistical jugglery, because for any event with three outcome probabilities, each probability is any way likely to be 33% only.

IMD gives reason for this expected less rainfall prediction as the much dreaded El Nino. IMD says that it has already developed in Pacific ocean and there is a high chance of its continuing through the long Indian summer. El Nino (means little boy in Spanish) is a geographical phenomenon that warms the surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific. This warming up of ocean can be first observed around December in Peruvian waters of South America. This phenomenon occurs cyclically, after every three to seven years. The phenomenon is quite insignificant but the after effects are quite devastating for the humans. Usually it leads to more rainfall in South America and substantial drop in the fish catch. El Nino has a dramatic effect on the trade winds across Pacific, blowing to the west. This results into triggering drought in Southeast Asia , Australia and parts of South Africa. It also reduces Monsoon rainfall in India, which impacts crops and livelihood of people. It generates cyclones in the central Pacific and stormy weather in southern and western US. The number of hurricanes in the Atlantic, however tend to go down. In Australia, El-Nino can cause cut in wheat crop output, reduces water supplies by cutting river flows, shrink city reservoirs and dry out forests, which can trigger bush fires. As against this it increases rain in North America , improving crop prospects. Major El-Nino's have happened in 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2002-03. The severe El Nino in 1998 killed more than 2,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage to crops, infrastructure and mines in Australia and other parts of Asia.

Exactly opposite outcome results when the surface temperatures of the eastern and central Pacific ocean cool down substantially. This is known as a little girl or La-Nina. It triggers stronger trade winds across the Pacific and around northern Australia, triggering above average rains and number of cyclones. In Indonesia and parts of Australia, La Nina can bring flooding rains. In Argentina and the US plains, La Nina can trigger drought. La Nina causes more hurricanes in Atlantic and fewer in Pacific. Major La Nina events occurred in 1973-76, 1988-89 and 2010-12.

Last year ( 2014), after sensing a similar situation of a growing El Nino, IMD had predicted 'below normal' monsoon with 95% rainfall. The actual rainfall was even less or at 88% in the June-September, making 2014 a drought year. This resulted in 6.5% loss in production of summer crops. If rains turn deficient even this year, situation is likely to be more difficult because of back-to-back deficiency.

There are other after effects too besides the loss in agricultural production, from India's point of view. First is the drinking water shortage. Many states like Maharashtra are totally dependent on rainwater for drinking water needs. Fodder shortage may be another source of worry. In many parts of India, huge hydroelectric generating stations provide electric power. These depend entirely upon the rain water to generate power. Any drought like condition is bound to reduce availability of power.

This grim scenario appears to be a likely possibility, for which we need to brace ourselves up. The shortages however are always transitory in nature and can always be managed. What is the most scary part of this scenario is the effect that this would have on economy and the Indian Rupee, which are already under inflationary pressure.

This year, so far has not been a good one for India's farmers with heavy crop losses due to widespread hailstorms and freak rains. This has resulted with destruction of crops. Another poor summer crop season would add to the farmer's woes and drinking water shortages in states like Maharashtra. The states and federal Governments need to start preparing contingency plans to suit different rainfall probabilities such as seed banks, rainwater harvesting and efficient use procedures; only then the country can survive the crisis with minimal effects that cause agrarian distress.

24^th April 2015

Little boy is back!

It is said that any bad news is usually true. In February 2014, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology came out with a prediction which said that an El Niño weather pattern may occur in the coming months, parching Australia and parts of Asia while bringing rains to South America. International climate models surveyed by this bureau, showed that Pacific Ocean temperatures were approaching or exceeding El Niño thresholds in the austral winter. It said that the tropical Pacific Ocean subsurface has warmed substantially in recent weeks and further warming is likely in the coming months. The US Climate Prediction Center and other global weather institutions also then predicted possibility of less rain in India during Monsoon this year due to the El Nino effect.

If the latest update from Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology is to believed, El Nino is almost a certainty. Bureau now says that the chance of an El Nino weather event developing in 2014 now exceeds 70 percent. That is definitely something we all should worry.

El Nino (means little boy in Spanish), warms the surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific. This warming up of ocean can be first observed around December in Peruvian waters of South America. This phenomenon occurs cyclically, after every three to seven years. The phenomenon is quite insignificant but the after effects are quite devastating for the humans. Usually it leads to more rainfall in South America and substantial drop in the fish catch. El Nino has a dramatic effect on the trade winds across Pacific, blowing to the west. This results into triggering drought in Southeast Asia , Australia and parts of South Africa. It also reduces Monsoon rainfall in India, which impacts crops and livelihood of people. It generates cyclones in the central Pacific and stormy weather in southern and western US. The number of hurricanes in the Atlantic, however tend to go down. In Australia, El-Nino can cause cut in wheat crop output, reduces water supplies by cutting river flows, shrink city reservoirs and dry out forests, which can trigger bush fires. As against this it increases rain in North America , improving crop prospects. Major El-Nino's have happened in 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2002-03. The severe El Nino in 1998 killed more than 2,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage to crops, infrastructure and mines in Australia and other parts of Asia.

So what are the prospects for this year for India and Asia. El Nino usually means extremely dry weather in India. The worst El Nino perhaps happened in 1997/98, which caused massive flooding along China's Yangtze river killing more than 1,500 people. El Nino can create severe drought in India, resulting in a major downfall in crop production. 2009, El Nino brought down monsoon rainfall in India. Since most of India's agriculture depends on monsoon rainfall, it could bring the agricultural production down substantially. Not only that, most of the people in peninsular India are totally dependent on rain water for their daily needs. If the rainfall is scanty, it would create water shortages and cities in peninsular India would go thirsty. It could also lead to a worst drought in Deccan. Sugar in India is derived from Sugar cane. This is one crop that requires huge quantities of water. With a scanty rainfall the sugar cane crop yields are expected to be poor, which means that international sugar prices are likely to hit the roof.

During March, Deccan plateau was badly hit with several hail storms damaging major crops which were almost ready for harvesting. If rains fail in coming months, the scenario is bound to be exceptionally grim.

Perhaps the worst spectre from India's point of view, besides the loss in agricultural production, is the likely drinking water shortage. Many states like Maharashtra are totally dependent on rainwater for drinking water needs. Fodder shortage may be another source of worry. In many parts of India, huge hydroelectric generating stations provide electric power. These depend entirely upon the rain water to generate power. Any drought like condition is bound to reduce availability of power.

India is in the process of electing a new Government right now and the results are expected by 16^th May 2014. El Nino might turn out to be the first major challenge before the new Government, which would have to brace up to meet the coming situation.

11^th April 2014

Return of the Spectre

It’s been almost five years, since this little boy,  made his last visit bringing unfathomable miseries and hardship to the people of Asia. Whenever he decides to visit, he always brings along with him, disasters starting from record floods to crippling droughts, wildfires and wild swings in weather patterns. The worst part of it is that the visit actually takes place somewhere far away, in eastern and central pacific, but the devastating effects are felt in Asia and cost Billions of Dollars to Asian Economies.

The Little boy is none other than El Nino (means little boy in Spanish), which warms the surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific. This warming up of ocean can be first observed around December in Peruvian waters of South America. This phenomenon occurs cyclically, after every three to seven years. The phenomenon is quite insignificant but the after effects are quite devastating for the humans. Usually it leads to more rainfall in South America and substantial drop in the fish catch. El Nino has a dramatic effect on the trade winds across Pacific, blowing to the west. This results into triggering drought in Southeast Asia , Australia and parts of South Africa. It also reduces Monsoon rainfall in India, which impacts crops and livelihood of people. It generates cyclones in the central Pacific and stormy weather in southern and western US. The number of hurricanes in the Atlantic, however tend to go down. In Australia, El-Nino can cause cut in wheat crop output, reduces water supplies by cutting river flows, shrink city reservoirs and dry out forests, which can trigger bush fires. As against this it increases rain in North America , improving crop prospects. Major El-Nino's have happened in 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2002-03. The severe El Nino in 1998 killed more than 2,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage to crops, infrastructure and mines in Australia and other parts of Asia.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology says that an El Niño weather pattern may occur in the coming months, parching Australia and parts of Asia while bringing rains to South America. International climate models surveyed by this bureau, show that Pacific Ocean temperatures are approaching or exceeding El Niño thresholds in the austral winter. It says that the tropical Pacific Ocean subsurface has warmed substantially in recent weeks and further warming is likely in the coming months. The US Climate Prediction Center and other global weather institutions have already predicted possibility of less rain in India during Monsoon this year due to the El Nino effect.

Along with scanty rain prediction for 2014, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, is also predicting that depending on the size of the El Niño, 2014 and, more likely, 2015, might turn out to be the warmest years on record. Gavin Schmidt, deputy director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, says that during the Earth’s warmest years, 2010 and 2005, similar weather patterns were seen. Indonesia’s Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics Agency also says that it’s been almost five years since the last El Nino event. An El Niño trend is likely to develop this year.

What does this mean for India? El Nino, which occurs every four to 12 year cyclically had last hit India's Monsoon in 2009, leading to the worst drought in the country in nearly four decades. If El Nino hits this year, then a grim prediction awaits India saying that El Nino conditions may possibly impact Monsoon this year, triggering drought in parts of India. El Nino can create severe drought in India, resulting in a major downfall in crop production. It would also bring down soybean, palm oil, sugar and rice yields from Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. In Australia it brings down crops of wheat, barley and canola. In China, Corn production would be affected. Only plus point of El Nino is that a strong El-Nino is beneficial to crops such as coffee and cocoa and keep their global prices in check.

Scientists in India are still debating about whether El Nino conditions will hit India and what would be it's intensity? However precautionary measures need to start almost immediately. A senior scientist, engaged with research programme on Climate Change, agriculture and Food security (CCAFS), says that the policy makers can certainly not take a chance. He adds:

“Though India had enough food-grain stock to meet any drought situation, there is a need to take precautionary measures to protect the vulnerable farmers. Extending effective insurance cover, timely availability of weather information and proper distribution of water, seeds and other ingredients are some of the measures which will help the country in adverse situation.”

There are other factors too, besides the loss in agricultural production from India's point of view. First is the drinking water shortage. Many states like Maharashtra are totally dependent on rainwater for drinking water needs. Fodder shortage may be another source of worry. In many parts of India, huge hydroelectric generating stations provide electric power. These depend entirely upon the rain water to generate power. Any drought like condition is bound to reduce availability of power.

This grim scenario appears to be a likely possibility, for which we need to brace ourselves up. The shortages however are always transitory in nature and can always be managed. What is the most scary part of this scenario is the effect that this would have on economy and the Indian Rupee, which are already reeking under double digit inflation and costly money.

Unfortunately there are no quick measures or remedies.

27^th February 2014

Water: from toilets to tap

The island country of Singapore, even since it became independent in 1965 from Malaysian federation, always had one vulnerability; inadequate availability of water for use of its citizens. Even though there is substantial rain fall over the island, it has little or limited land to collect and store rainwater. Authorities in Singapore, realising that the local catchment water is the main strength of sustainable water supply, have been making a dedicated effort to increase the water storage capacity by building new reservoirs.. Since 2011, the water catchment area has been increased from half to two-thirds of Singapore’s land surface with the completion of the Marina, Punggol and Serangoon Reservoirs. Singapore collects rainwater through a comprehensive network of drains, canals, rivers, storm-water collection ponds and reservoirs before it is treated for drinking water supply. This makes Singapore one of the few countries in the world to harvest urban storm-water on a large-scale for its water supply.

In spite of all this effort, the country is still deficient of water and needs to import water from the Johor state of Malaysia. Singapore has been importing water under two bilateral agreements. The first agreement expired in August 2011 and second agreement will expire in 2061. Some elements in Johor are not happy with this arrangement and keep making noise against the agreements. Singapore has always felt strategic vulnerability because of this dependence on Malaysia and has been trying to create alternate additional sources of water.

Singapore has one of Asia’s largest seawater reverse-osmosis plant, which produces 30 million gallons of water a day (136,000 cubic metres) to meet about 10% of Singapore’s water needs. A second and larger desalination plant with a capacity of 70 million or 318,500 cubic metres of desalinated water per day, the Tuaspring Desalination Plant opened in September 2013.

Another significant step taken by Singapore Government towards self sufficiency in water is the project to produce high-grade reclaimed water produced from treated used wastewater that is further purified using advanced membrane technologies and ultra-violet disinfection, making it ultra-clean and safe to drink. The project is named as NEWater and the first plant was opened in 2004. This plant has been now closed but during last 9 years, 4 new plants were added. Together, Singapore's four NEWater plants can meet 30% of the nation’s water needs. Singapore Government wants to expand the current NEWater capacity by 2060, so that NEWater can meet up to 55% of future water demand.

However Singapore's water deficiency is essentially related to non availability of enough landmass to store water. It gets abundant rainfall but is unable to retain it. But there are many countries in the world, which have huge landmass available but water itself is not available. The port city of Durban in South Africa is one such city facing acute shortage of water. City's municipality relies on the Umgeni river system for water. But demand on the system, which supplies drinking water to about five million people and fuels industry in the economic hubs of Durban and Pietermaritzburg, a town 66 kilometers from the coast, has outstripped supply for the past seven years.

To tide over the difficulty, municipality has been investigating use of desalination plants as done in Singapore. But these are very expensive to build and run as an individual plant may cost around $300 Million. Left with no other option, the city wants to make use of recycled wastewater like Singapore's NEWater. The city would upgrade two of its wastewater plants with a three-stage system that uses filtration, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet light and chlorination would be used get the water to drinking quality. The treated water would also be stored and tested before being released. It plans to mix this purified water with conventional drinking water at a ratio of 30 percent to 70 percent before supplying it to some parts of the city. Reusing wastewater in this way, will add 116 megaliters of tap water to the municipality’s supply daily.

However people do not like to consume purified wastewater. In Singapore, most of it is used for industrial consumption. In Durham there has been opposition to the plan, including the submission of a 5,000-signature petition from the public. Citizens have raised concerns about the safety of drinking the reused water. “Recycling of toilet water to drinking water is a death sentence to the general public because of health implications,” says one person.

I have purposely taken here two examples, one from an affluent country and another from a poor developing economy just to highlight the fact that in future water is going to be a commodity that would be in perpetual shortage. In future, many human habitations would be forced to recycle their wastewater, whether they like it or not.

5^th October 2013

The return of the unwanted

In spite of many Meteorologists, praying in their hearts, that he would never return, the most unwanted little boy of Mother Nature or El Nino is finally back with a bang. The Indian Meteorological Department or IMD is perhaps still feeling shy to announce his return because the moment they do it, the commodity prices in India would start skyrocketing upwards and stock prices would start looking down towards the hell. This likely future scenario could not be considered particularly concussive to good health of the federal Government of India, already under kind of policy paralysis because of the intransigent attitude of its allies and feeling besieged by never ending multitude of corruption scandals coming to light almost every other day.

The new social media, Twitter, sometimes comes up with very funny one liners or Tweeverbs. I found this one by someone called DanteBello, which says “ Day breaks even if the cock refuses to crow.” Our IMD is just behaving like this cock, who is refusing to crow. However there are always other cocks in this world , who are more than willing to crow. Indonesia's Meteorology, Geophysics and Climatology Agency announced last week that “ A normal to weak El Nino weather pattern in Indonesia will persist until the end of the year and will potentially reduce rainfall in the eastern parts of the country” Now obviously, El Nino happens to be a global phenomenon, not restricted to borders of Indonesia. If El Nino has arrived for Indonesia, it has also arrived for India or for that matter, entire world. El Nino, defined by the warm water oceanic currents that shift across the Globe, makes the weather patterns very dramatically, which can bring havoc with either too much or scanty rain.

So what kind of weather, we are likely to face? And what would be the aftereffects? Here is a brief overview of grim scenario. El Nino would cause above average rains in parts of south Americas and drought in Southeast Asia, Australia, India and parts of Brazil, cyclones in the central Pacific and stormy weather in the southern and western United States. India’s monsoon rains are likely to be deficient in 2012, signalling the first drought in three years as the El Nino should cut rains in the second half of the June-September season. During last El Nino season of 2009, Indian monsoon rains had turned patchy, leading to the worst drought in nearly four decades. The 1997-98 El Nino is considered as the worst, with more than 2,000 people dead and property damage estimated at $33 billion.

Poor rainfall for the first two months of 2012 Monsoon season in India’s top three cane producing states, has hurt the sugar crop. This would result in India importing even larger quantities of sugar this year. India being the world's top sugar consumer, International prices of sugar are expected to touch the sky. The crops such as pulses, rice, soybeans, groundnuts are already threatened in India. Government hopes to bridge the shortfall with winter crops. With El Nino in command, even winter crops may become unpredictable.

El Nino, which typically brings dry weather to Southeast Asia, usually reduces the palm oil output in Malaysia and the international prices are bound to harden. India imports huge quantities of palm oil from southeast Asia and this could be bad news. With reduction in groundnuts and soybean production, oil prices in India are expected to be much higher. Oil situation is getting more and more worrisome because Global corn prices have surged more than 60 percent in the last two months to all time highs as the United States reels from the worst drought in 56 years, which has wilted crops. China’s corn imports are likely to jump almost 60 percent in the year to Sept. 2013 and this surely means much higher prices for corn and corn oil.

El Nino in 2009/2010 brought severe drought in southwestern provinces of China, the country’s largest sugar and coffee growing area, as well as floods in provinces along the Yangtze River, the major rice and cotton growing areas. This might get repeated this year.

The only silver lining appears to be the production of basic cereals like wheat and paddy, where production is expected to be enough for the prices to remain soft.

From India's point of view there are other factors. First is the drinking water shortage. Many states like Maharashtra are totally dependent on rainwater for drinking water needs. Fodder shortage may be another source of worry. In many parts of India, huge hydroelectric generating stations provide electric power. These depend entirely upon the rain water to generate power. Any drought like condition is bound to reduce availability of power.

This grim scenario seems to be a likely possibility, for which we need to brace ourselves up. The shortages however are always transitory in nature and can always be managed. What is the most scary part of this scenario is the effect that this would have on economy and the Indian Rupee, which are already reeking under double digit inflation and costly money.

Unfortunately there are no quick measures or remedies.

24 August 2012