BANTEN, Indonesia — All signs are pointing toward a record-breaking El Niño this year, which experts say may cause severe drought in Asia and other extreme weather across the world, threatening food security for millions of people.
El Niño is part of a natural climate cycle of warming ocean temperatures, but this year’s is expected to reach new extremes of drought, heat waves, flooding, and other climate-related disruptions in South America, Africa and Asia.
Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions. It’s already beset by an energy crisis triggered by the war in Iran.
El Niño is already fueling wildfires across farmland, depleting water supplies for major cities and hurting fish catches in the region.
Asian governments that have been drawing on their financial reserves to mitigate the war’s ripple effects of higher energy costs and scarce fertilizer supplies have less capacity to cope with this year’s intensifying El Niño, which is forecast to peak in December.
The phenomenon may amplify other crises in Southeast Asia, according to Paul Teng, with Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, who said, “El Niño is only compounding all the other problems that we see.”
During El Niño years, sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean are warmer than usual. This happens every few years and often alters global weather patterns.
This year, the seas already are hotter than average, with global oceans hitting new temperature records in August as the climate warms, said Kareff Rafisura, chief of the Disaster Risk Reduction Division at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
This intensifying El Niño may be the “strongest in living memory,” according to the United Kingdom’s national weather and climate service.
Similarly, the US’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there is a 69 percent chance that this will be the strongest recorded El Niño since record-keeping began in 1950.
El Niño’s impact will be felt differently across regions, but it is expected to jeopardize food security worldwide. It could push at least 49 million more people into acute food insecurity by the end of 2027, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program.
El Niño hitting parts of Asia
In Southeast Asia, wildfires are torching forests and peatlands in Indonesia, sending up plumes of toxic haze. The water level of a major reservoir supplying the bustling capital city of Jakarta — the world’s biggest metropolis — is dropping inch by inch.
As the lake dries, the ruins of one of 11 villages that had been inundated by the reservoir have emerged, as alarm grows over the need for alternative water supplies for the city of 42 million.
“I would have rather not moved. There were plenty of livelihood opportunities here,” said Hussen, who only uses one name, as he ferried people across the receding reservoir.
This is just the beginning, said Erma Yulihastin with Indonesia’s Research Center for Climate and Atmosphere, who warned El Niño has only just begun its “super phase.”
Southeast Asia’s wet season generally runs from June to October, when rains usually replenish reservoirs, cool overheated cities and supply water for irrigation ahead of the next planting season.
Drought may force farmers to delay planting, reduce acreage or switch crops entirely, said Rafisura, with the UN.
“Agriculture is definitely on the front line,” she said.
Cutbacks in staple crops like rice and palm oil can have global impacts. The world’s top three exporters of rice — India, Vietnam and Thailand — are among the nations most likely to be hit hard by El Niño this year.
El Niño is also bearing down on Indonesia and Malaysia, suppliers of about 85 percent of the world’s palm oil, which is used in everything from cookies and lipstick to toothpaste and laundry detergent.
While the total economic fallout of an extreme El Niño is hard to calculate, losses from past events have reached trillions of dollars, according to HSBC’s Global Investment Research, which warns the numbers could be even bigger this time. AP
