Anthropogenic Pressures Making El Nino Effect Extreme

Climate Change

Climate change and its relationship with El Niño is a topic of current scientific research. Though there is no consensus among the scientific community about this relationship but recent scientific studies suggest that global heating may be leading to stronger El Niño events. It has also been reported that current sea surface temperature extremes driven by El Niño have intensified by around 10% compared to pre-1960 levels. It has been predicted based on earlier studies that the frequency of extreme El Niño events could double over the next century due to faster surface warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean brought on by global temperature rises. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also predicts the frequency of strong El Niño and La Niña events is likely to increase throughout the next century.

Many scientists believe the effects of climate change will be intensified by El Niño because increased global temperatures are themselves associated with increased extreme weather events. Therefore, the coinciding effects of both elevated temperatures and El Niño events are predicted to induce record breaking spikes in global temperatures, and a further increased probability of catastrophic weather conditions will occur.

Also during the last three years the summer temperatures were severe with scorching heat waves. The summer of 2023 was so scorching hot that scientists said it was the hottest summer in the last 2000 years. In the year 2024 the first month of the year was Earth’s warmest January recorded. February 2024 was the 9th consecutive hottest month ever recorded. March 2024 hottest ever recorded. April 2024 hottest month ever recorded. The last 11 months on Earth have been record-breaking in terms of heat. The rise in temperature is going to hit the economy of each and every part of the world and Kashmir is also going to hit by the loss in production of rosaceous fruits, as these plants need at least 600 and 1000 chill hours for proper flowering and fruiting. In different states of India widespread forest fires have been witnessed and even in the temperate Uttarakhand, forest fires were reported and therefore the green gold of Kashmir is also under threat because of events like those mentioned above.

Due to weather change lot of catastrophes took place around the world (severe drought, floods, landslides, heavy rains etc.). Due to climate change the natural cycle of the Earth’s climate is becoming more extreme year after year. The full name of this cycle is El Niño Southern

Oscillation. In short, it is called ENSO. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), this is the second biggest cause that changes the climate of the earth., and on the first place, is the relationship between the Earth and the Sun, Earth’s revolution around the Sun, which causes the seasons to change. Winter following summer and summer following winter. But after that effect, El Niño has the second biggest impact.

The readers must be interested to know what is El Niño? It is something that can be seen in the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean is the world’s largest and deepest ocean, lying between Asia and the Americas. Imagine, this ocean is like a bath-tub, water keeps moving from one side to another. When you move your hand in the tub, the water sloshes from one side to another and then gets back to the first point. Similarly, winds blow over the Pacific Ocean flowing from east to west. These winds are called Trade Winds and most of the time, they move from the Americas to the direction of Asia and Australia because of Earth’s rotation.

It is a well-known fact that Earth rotates from West to East, due to this Coriolis Effect, the Trade Winds flow in the opposite direction. Normally, the water on the surface of the Pacific Ocean starts flowing towards the West. It means it starts flowing towards Australia, when the water on the surface starts flowing in west direction; in the east, the water below the surface level of the sea starts rising to the surface. That is, near South America, the water from the depths of the sea rises towards the surface. This is called Upwelling. The water that rises from the depths of the ocean is much colder comparatively and has more nutrients. Because of this, fish and marine life also benefit. So, in this normal situation, the hot water goes to Australia, and the cold water comes to South America. When water is hot, it evaporates more easily. Because of that evaporation, clouds are formed and more rain is seen near Australia. But now, imagine that these Trade Winds have weakened. These winds are not flowing as strongly over the Pacific Ocean. What will happen? The upwelling will be weak, it will be almost non-existent. The hot water on the surface will consistently remain hot. The clouds that were sup-posed to bring rain to Australia can rain any- where over the Pacific Ocean. So, the Australian region will become very dry.

Now, apart from this, there is an opposite phenomenon of El Niño which is LA Nina. Both these words are from Spanish. EL Nino means the boy and LA Niña means the girl. The normal conditions of the Pacific Ocean when goes reverse, the LA Niña effect is seen. What does this mean? The Trade Winds blowing towards the west start moving strongly in that direction. Because of this, colder water flows to South America and hotter water flows to- wards Australia and it starts raining more in Australia due to LA Niña.

Keeping in view the above facts that global climate change may lead to stronger El Niño events, every one of us across the world should work to mitigate the causes that increase the global temperature. We living in Kashmir should be more careful because we have a fragile ecosystem so say no to concrete jungles, unplanned development, deforestation and destroying our water bodies etc.

Dr. Aijaz Hassan Ganie, Assistant Professor, Department of Botany, University of Kashmir

North Campus