It blows hot. It blows slowly. It brings fire and rain, feast and famine. It affects weather around the world. It is called El Niño.
Early this year, as the country experienced cold weather and flooding, there were talks that El Niño will be back again!
“There is a high probability of El Niño to run over six months beginning in July this year,” wrote our roving reporter, Maya Padillo.
Her source of information is the country’s weather bureau, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA). It is a line agency of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
During the recent Kapehan sa Dabaw at SM City, Lolita Vinalay told the attending media that “a 55% possibility of a six-month dry season” will happen. It will start three months from now.
“We are now in the neutral condition starting March 24 wherein PAGASA issued the final advisory of La Niña,” Vinalay, who is the Davao station chief meteorological officer of PAGASA, was quoted as saying.
“Right now, we are in neutral condition as there’s no La Niña and there’s no El Niño, too. Based on the forecast models that DOST/PAGASA issued, there is a possibility for the development of El Niño this coming July, August, and September,” she added.
Why there is so much ado when El Niño comes?
“This weather disturbance is considered an enemy that could cause damage to the environment, agriculture, and marine life. As such, it has destructive consequences to human life,” points out the Laguna-based Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD).
Why El Niño happen?
It was the fishers of the far west shores of South America that first noticed the dramatic climate change and had given it a name. Usually, the currents in the waters where they fished were cold and flowed from east to west.
But, in certain years, the currents flowed in the opposite direction and became very warm. The air became more humid, and large thunderstorms developed. These years were bad for fishing, and it was difficult for the fishers to survive and feed their families. They noticed that this odd weather usually occurred in December, so they called it “El Niño” meaning “the child.”
El Niño actually referred to Child Jesus, who was assumed to be born on December 25.
Around the same time, other areas of the world had unusual floods, hurricanes, or drought. Scientists who studied the weather started to see a pattern in these changes. They found that every three to seven years, the Earth experienced a change in the weather. This change always began in the tropical Pacific Ocean, near the equator.
Scientists also believe that this event has been happening for hundreds of years. Historians are dating the phenomenon at least as far back as the early 1500s, when the Spanish conquistadores entered South America amid raging storms.
The El Niño cycle may be simple, yet the energy reserves it carries is vast, almost unbelievable. Most reports say “it contains more energy than has been procured from all the fossil fuels burned in the United States since the beginning of the century – that’s all the gasoline in all the cars, the coal in all the power plants, the natural gas in all the furnaces. It would take more than a million large power plants, at 1,000 megawatts each, running full tilt for a year, to heat the ocean that much.”
During the El Niño phenomenon, people are more likely to experience a hotter and longer summer. Normally, temperatures during the dry season range from 30 to 37 degrees Celsius.
“But during El Niño, the temperature is three degrees higher than the normal, with temperatures reaching as high as 38 degrees Celsius,” said Filipino meteorologist Nathaniel Cruz.
Scientists rank El Niño as the number one force disturbing world climate patterns. It has caused damage worth billions of dollars around the world in droughts, floods, and other livelihood revenues.
“El Niño events occur on average every four or five years, but irregularly – they can be two years apart, or as many as 10 years,” said an official of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Forewarned is forearmed, so goes a familiar saying. This must be the reason why the Laguna-based PCAARRD has come up with a compendium of materials on the abnormal weather entitled, The Fiery Fury of El Niño.
Since drought is equated with drought in the Philippines, PCAARRD advised farmers to plant drought-tolerant crops in time of El Niño. Examples of such crops are sorghum, sweet peppers, asparagus, ube, tugue, alugbati, winged beans, cowpea, cucumber, kadios, camote, cassava, peanut, ginger, mung beans, and black peppers.
The following fruit trees are also drought-tolerant: cashew, mango, citrus, tamarind, avocado, jackfruit, guava, and grapes.
Since water is a precious commodity during the El Niño, people are urged to help mitigate the water crunch. Leaking faucets and pipes must be fixed. While taking a bath, running tap water must be avoided; instead, bathers are advised to use a pail. The water used in shampooing is advised to be stored in the pail as the water can be used to flush the toilet.
