El Nino is knocking: Assessing potential impact on food and agriculture - Selina Wamucii

The global weather phenomenon of El Nino is on course later in 2023, according to NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

If it occurs in the twilight months of 2023, for its peak coincides with the European and North American winter, it will push the temperatures for this year to an unprecedented high.

There has been a steady historical rise in global temperatures by 1.2 degrees Celsius. If El Nino strikes hard in 2023, it will raise the bar on the hottest year in documented history, 2016.

It is likely that temperatures will spike by decimal three degrees and take the temperature hike to an unimaginable 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Given that every El Nino and its longer-running elemental partner, La Nina, have always left weather-related impacts in their wake, let’s look at the consequences.

At the outset, the most likely casualties of this year’s phenomenon will include:

Australia: in 2016 the country experienced wildfires from rising temperatures in the East pacific.
The Horn of Africa and South Africa: Intense rainfall will alleviate the humanitarian effects of the prolonged 2022 drought in the tropical and sub-temperate southern region in the short-term. Flooding and short-term food boon will be followed by a return in drought and high food prices.
Southern Europe: the Mediterranean region, especially Spain, will bring a hot summer, worsen the current drought situation and give rise to heat waves and fires.
Northern Europe and Central US: Northern Europe will experience a harsh, dry and frosty winter. The plains of Central US will bring dry winter conditions that will disrupt next spring’s food production.
Chile, Tahiti, Alaska and south Pacific islands will, as usual, experience bad weather effects that will hamper trade.

What is El Nino?

El Nino literally means ‘The Boy’ in Spanish, and to put a pun to it, many centuries gone by, Peruvians even christened it El Nino Navidad, associating it with the newborn boy Christ. So much for a weather phenomenon that has spiritual connotations!

According to the US’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NORA), El Nino is the extreme of the normal atmospheric, wind, rainfall and ocean-surface temperatures in the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. ENSO means the usual normal change in the ocean surface’s temperature, rainfall patterns, wind velocity and air pressure dynamics from one year to the next.

Sometimes, a sharp swerve from the normal, such as a strong rise in temperature of the sea surface brings weather anomalies along with it.

El Nino typically has the following causes and characteristics:

El Nino is a periodical common phenomenon where temperatures in the East-Central Pacific region inside the tropics rise above normal.
On the opposite side of the spectrum is La Nina, a situation where the equatorial region of the Central Pacific’s sea surface thermal conditions dip and cause cooling conditions inside the sea.

The alteration in the usual temperatures across the sea surface leads to warmer sea waters, which bring dry frosty conditions.
In Africa, Latin America and southeast Asia, along the tropics, disruptive rainfall patterns, characterized by flash floods and intense rains, occur. The aftermath is usually an intense drought as the one witnessed in Somalia in April 2016 just after the El Nino of a year earlier.
Incidentally, April is usually the culmination of the usual nine-to-twelve-month long El Nino cycle. It usually starts in late spring around May and develops through the Northern summer in July. It then peaks in intensity around December onward, before signing off with ripple effects from December through April.
La Nina, on the other hand, lasts 12 to 36 months. Sometimes, it stays even longer.

What we know so far

According to the US Weather Service, El Nino has already shown the likelihood of developing by May through July of 2023.

The meteorological data of April 26, 2023 shows that though neutral ENSO patterns still persist in the tropical East Pacific belt, they are nearing a higher-than-usual temperature. Therefore, the patterns are inclining towards a 62 percent El Nino chance later in the year.

As the La Nina phase nears its multi-year end this year, west winds have already begun blowing more steadily eastward, a common precursor of hot atmospheric conditions over the east-Pacific equatorial belt. Hence, there is a rise in the ocean surface’s heat degree, which may lead to El Nino.

Impact of El Nino on food prices

Food prices in countries like the United States will not be spared if the expected weather phenomenon develops as NASA predicts. The US is positioned north and west of the epicenter of the East-Pacific El Nino cradle. The country will therefore expect a dry cold winter, with no precipitation for growing the 2024 spring crops. This will no doubt bring a hike in the prices of consumer products in an already high food price situation in the US.

The US is also one of the countries experiencing much of the blunt after-effects of climate change in the world, especially through hurricanes and coastal storms. The El Nino visitation will, on top of this, alter weather patterns. Past El Nino data shows how this change in weather patterns has often disrupted American food production potential in a big way.

Crops that are likely to lose out in the price battle include grains such as corn, wheat, rice and barley. Maize lost significantly in the previous decade’s El Nino/La Nina phases. The current production levels of wheat in the Midwest, especially Kansas, are below normal and if weather disruptions occur, they will reduce further and prices will go up. Some legumes like soybeans normally do well under the American El Nino, but this does not automatically portend low prices for this food crop in the US.

Effects of El Nino on food prices in Europe

Of all global winters, the northern winter under El Nino is usually the worst, particularly for northern Europeans. This occurs due to the fact that air pressure in the Polar Jet Stream loses its usual force to balance wintry conditions to El Nino’s hot winds. This abrupt change leads to frosty dry winters. Thus, crop production in the next spring will be haphazard at best and food prices will most likely exacerbate.

Though Spain is not in the path of the extreme northern winter as its EU neighbors in Scandinavia are, it will battle food prices more than most. The temperatures here had reached 38.7 degre e s Celsius in April, a spring bell for a hotter summer ahead. Hence, the food basket of Europe, Spain, which is in the grips of a prolonged drought will have to brace for higher food prices in the El Nino aftermath. The rest of continental Europe including the UK will follow suit.

Impact of El Nino on food prices in Africa

The food price question is always on the top of the mind for the tropical regions lying between desert environments spanning 15 degrees and 30 degrees latitude. Trade winds normally contribute much of precipitation development in the equatorial tropics. However, these winds change their intensity during El Nino, another reason why drought often follows in the heels of El Nino rains in Africa.

Most of Africa lies between two main deserts. The deserts are the sources of hot trade winds that rise while blowing across the tropical rain forests of the continent, bringing rain. Later, when they have cooled down as rain, they blow back to the desert and sweep away any remaining clouds, leading to double droughts.

One has to remember that during El Nino, these trade winds are more extreme, and may sweep away maturing grains, erode soil, and even stunt seeds during germination, another reason for a periodical rise in African food prices.

Here are some historical impacts on food prices in Africa that are likely to repeat themselves in the 2023-24 period:

1. African fishing communities along the Indian Ocean have often suffered lesser fish catches as the high-velocity warm currents affect coastal fisheries.

2. Relief Web International predicted that 2017, the year following the La Nina of 2015-16 would lead to animal deaths, seed deficiency, damage of crops after bumper harvests and malnutrition. These predictions are apparent now in the Eastern and South African regions. Millions of people are in need of food relief and prices in, especially South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique are higher in 2023, than they were in 2018.

3. The last El Nino disrupted normal grazing patterns in 2019 in the Horn of Africa, leading to fall of livestock prices. At the same time, reduction in the intensity of the short rains from April through May led to low food quantities and hence a spike in prices. The governments in the region had to enforce food export bans.

Therefore, if the El Nino hits again, it will bring a short-term boon in food production and a windfall in fair food prices, but a year later, drought will upend the short-term gains. The final result will be the worsening of the current high food price situation across Sub-Saharan Africa.

El Nino vs El Nina

El Nino and El Nina are the dual extremes of the ENSO cycle. They mark a sharp increase in sea surface temperatures on the one hand and a reverse of the same on the other hand.

El Nino means hot conditions that deliver rainfall in the tropics and dry frosty weather in temperate regions. La Nina, on the other hand, is a prolonged cool weather phenomenon which brings rainfall in the tropics and extreme cold in temperate regions.

Here are some notable similarities and differences between the two:

El Nino lasts from 9 months to 1 year while La Nina can last 1 to 3 years.
Both cycles start around March through June, lessen during the northern summer and then reach their intensity from December through April.
In Australia, El Nino causes bushfires while in Chile, it brings a stop in metal distribution due to an intense dry frost.
La Nina, on the other hand, brings down temperatures and hits hard in polar regions such as Alaska, where a drop in winter weather of 3.4 degrees can be expected.
Of the two, El Nino is the most intense because it is short-lived.
Both El Nino and La Nina can outlast their natural spans. El Nino can continue 2 years in a row or even more than 3 years, while La Nina can follow up on its 1 to 3-year span pretty rapidly.

While both bring rainfall and food boon in the short term, especially in the tropics, they leave ripple effects of drought. This is true across much of the globe, including the tropics and temperate regions.

The Most Intense El Nino years in history

1982-83: the sea surface’s heating levels rose to their most intense by up to 12.8 degrees Celsius over the norm.
1997-98: the same increase in temperature of between 7.8 and 12.8 degrees Celsius was also witnessed, making this one of the two most critical of all recorded El Ninos.
The most intense La Nina was the one observed, especially in Alaska, in the winter of 1995-96 just a year before the El Nino of ‘97. Temperatures dropped by -3.4 degrees Celsius.

Whether or not El Nino takes place this year or in 2024, it is clear that the usual ripple effects in food prices will follow up in its wake in coming years. Thus, the world will have to brace up for higher food-caused inflation than it currently faces in 2023.