Time to insulate Indian farming from El Nino blues

By Dinesh C Sharma, Metro India, April 28, 2014

In the midst of election din has come a piece of bad news – the southwest monsoon this year is likely to be below average. In normal times, this would have created ripples and sent shock waves in political and government circles because it means this year could be a drought year in many parts of the country. Since elections are already underway, the monsoon forecast this year has lost its political sensitivity. 

We will have a new government at the centre before the monsoon season begins and the task of handling the emerging situation is now left to the next government. A bad monsoon – and possibly a drought – could be the very first task that the new central regime would have to handle. The same would be the case for the new state government in Telangana. It could be a major challenge for the first chief minister of India’s newest state. 

Among several global factors that decide the fate of June-to-September rainfall in India is the El Nino Southern Oscillation, which basically reflects seasonal changes in sea surface temperature conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. 
By all indications, El Nino is developing in a way that does not augur well for the Indian monsoon. The sub surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific have warmed to the levels generally observed prior to an El Nino event. When this temperature data is fed into various weather prediction models, a majority of them have indicated that high probability of the warming of the equatorial Pacific reaching to El Nino level during the southwest monsoon season. 

The overall impact could be less severe because other factors like temperatures in the equatorial Indian Ocean are neutral and will continue to be so during the monsoon period. It so happens that all droughts in the past have occurred in El Nino years, but all El Nino years have not been drought years. So, there is still hope that despite El Nino, severe drought conditions may not develop though rainfall may be less than normal.

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