Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Beware – El Niño is not El Bimbo

Those who have not heard El Bimbo (played by many musicians, specially my all time favourite Paul Mauriat), they are not at much loss as there are so many million melodies and songs around the world and naturally every one of the cannot be heard (though El Bimbo is one of the very famous one). But those who haven’t heard of El Niño (and also El Nina) would be much at a loss to understand the weather changes that take place the year round the world.

El Niño is a weather phenomenon characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures as opposed to La Niña, which characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures. El Niño is an oscillation of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific having important consequences for weather around the globe. Among these consequences is increased rainfall across the southern tier of the

and in

Peru

, which has caused destructive flooding, and drought in the West Pacific, sometimes associated with devastating brush fires in

Australia

. Observations of conditions in the tropical Pacific are considered essential for the prediction of short term (a few months to 1 year) climate variations.

In case of

Pakistan

, due to the El Niño which developed in June 2009, it suppressed the monsoon rains in

Pakistan

by about 30% and that’s why we had lesser rains all over the country. The El Niño thing didn’t stop there, it is forecast by the meteorologists that its effect continue to be felt by the next monsoon season, resulting in far lesser rains as we are experiencing these days. The almost absence of rains is leading the county to drought – a severe drought this time as no rains are in sight. While the lesser or virtually no rains have drained out the two major dams of the country from the very last drop of water, the frozen catchment areas due to severe spell of winters are unable to provide any water downstream, thus adding to acute shortage of water that is harming the farmers badly and on the other hand is adding to the much touted “short fall” of the electricity as hydro power generation is not possible.

So from henceforth, we are in for a trouble unless rains come. So let us pray with all sincerity for the Nature to be kind to us and send us the much needed rain water.