The New Indian Express ·
Warning sounded from Peru about humid heat in Patna
Fifteen thousand kilometres from Patna, the sea off the coasts of Peru has been running hotter than it ought to. No one in India felt it happen and no one here caused it. Yet, on September 3, the World Meteorological Organization attached a probability to what it means for the rest of us—and that probability is the headline. The agency now puts the chance of El Niño lasting into February close to a certainty. It has issued these bulletins for half a century, but never before allowed itself that little hedging room. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the event was “being supersized before our eyes”.
You can see why the forecasters are sure. The stretch of central Pacific that meteorologists watch most closely sat about 1.5°C above normal through late Spring; by mid-August some weekly readings had climbed to 2.6°C. More telling is what lies underneath. In places, water below the surface in July and early August ran 8°C warmer than it should, which is a way of saying the event has a great deal left to draw on. The WMO—which expects the crest around December, with consequences unspooling through the following year—has begun the biggest joint effort with national weather services it has ever attempted.
The dates are what India is most likely to misread. Warm oceans surrender heat to the air only gradually, which is why the year after a big El Niño usually turns out hotter than the year containing it; WMO officials have floated 2027 as a candidate for the warmest on record. Add a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, which forecasters expect to form, and our dangerous season is not the one behind us. It is the one that opens in March, about six months from now. The World Food Programme puts the additional people pushed into acute hunger by this event at roughly 5 crore.
