El Nino risk for inflation, farm output in India: Finance ministry
America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted this year to be an ‘El-Nino’ year.
El Nino – Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
- Due to the ability to change global atmospheric circulation, ENSO is considered one of the most important climate phenomena on Earth.
- The southern oscillation is the vocabulary used for changes in atmospheric pressure between the eastern and western tropical Pacific Ocean.
- This change is associated with phenomena, both Al-Nino and La-Nina in the ocean. ENSO is a single climate phenomenon.
It has the following three stages:
- Al-Nino: In this phenomenon, the ocean surface in the middle and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean is heated or a temperature of above the average sea surface temperature (SST).
- La-Nina: In this phenomenon, the ocean surface in the Central and Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean gets colder or the temperature is reduced by the average SST.
- Neutral: Neither Al-Nino nor La Nina phenomenon occurs. In such a situation, the tropical Pacific Ocean is often close to the SST average.
Effect of Al-Nino on food inflation: Monsoon in India is often weak during the Al-Nino period. As a result, crop yields decrease at average and increase food prices. It is estimated that 60 percent of the droughts in India in the last 130 years were affiliated to the El Nino phenomenon.
Source – Economics Times
