Click for larger image. Sustained SOI values below –8 indicate El Niño episodes (the warm phase of the Southern Oscillation). People in Arizona generally welcome the wetter winters brought by El Niño, but in other parts of the world, El Niño can mean droughts, floods, crop failures, and looming food shortages. ; support to flood prevention through integrated watershed development programmes in eroded, mountainous regions, and. Shifting locations and types of fishes due to changing conditions provide challenges for fishing industries. It benefits the migratory birds, as they have to travel to distant cold areas for nesting because of these predators in tropics. It brings global climatic changes and the impact is high, in the regions bordering the tropical Pacific Ocean. ReliefWeb Labs projects explore new and emerging opportunities to improve information delivery to humanitarians. The cool phase is known as La Niña. During the El Nino event, fishes change their locations according to the water temperature and density. The northern portion of the continent has been dry. at 28 percent of utilization at the end of the season. FAO has assisted countries in implementing long-term preventive measures against drought and flood-related events which now facilitate preparedness and response of countries affected by El Niño.

The rainfall shifts from Western Pacific causing Australia to receive a reduced amount. In the last six months, FAO has made arrangements for assessing the essential agricultural inputs needed to restore production in four countries adversely affected by El Niño. By contrast, next year’s ending stocks are forecast to be very low, especially for maize, and represent only 12 percent of utilization. The El Nino increases the risk of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes in several countries such as Brazil, Colombia among others. It causes flooding in these regions, whenever the event is strong or extreme. The stock was reduced further, to its lowest level on record in conjunction with the El Niño of 1982-83, and has been recovering since, until the development of the current El Niño. The higher temperatures and droughts following an El Niño event, particularly in Asia and the Pacific, not only increases the prices of nonfuel commodities (by about 5½ percent over a year), but also boosts demand for coal and crude oil as lower output is generated from hydroelectric power plants, thereby driving up their prices.­, Generally—but not always—El Niño events tend to be inflationary, with the impact on our sample of countries ranging between 0.1 and 1 percentage point. In South America, wheat planting in the southern areas was affected by a wetter than normal winter season and a significant reduction in planted area is reported in Argentina and Brazil. El Niño events tend to enhance the hurricane season in the Pacific and depress the Atlantic hurricane season. Moreover, agroforestry systems in which trees and agricultural crops are raised in symbiosis may be affected likewise. El Niño has an impact on ocean temperatures, the speed and strength of ocean currents, the health of coastal fisheries, and local weather from Australia to South America and beyond. Chudik, Alexander, and M. Hashem Pesaran, 2016, “Theory and Practice of GVAR Modeling,” Journal of Economic Surveys, Vol. In general, decreased cloud cover results in warmer-than-average daytime temperatures, particularly in the spring and summer months. Short term climatic changes may also affect forest regeneration, both spontaneous and that assisted by man. Figures show that a significant El Nino can boost the GDP of United States by 0.5%. El Nino happens at the irregular intervals of two to seven years and lasts nine months to two years. Southern Africa, including Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, and the southern half of Mozambique, tends to see a drier December–February during an El Niño. This year’s El Niño is regarded by various experts as one of the most severe this century with record Pacific surface temperatures being observed. Since early March 1997 significant warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean has been observed and recognized as the beginning of an El Niño phenomenon. Access your account or create a new one for additional features or to post job or training opportunities. eval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'positivenegativeimpact_com-box-3','ezslot_1',106,'0','0'])); These are some of the positive and negative impacts of El Nino; at the moment we lack both the knowledge, and technical expertise to prevent an El Nino from occurring and all that we can do is to mitigate some of the effects and ride it out. El Niño events occur irregularly at two- to seven-year intervals. Its economic effect on international market can be serious. 53, No. Drought can be said as the main threat to food production, but heavy rains, flooding, and extremely hot or cold weather caused by El Nino are also pretty much as dangerous. Devastating tropical cyclones.

Although the element most likely supporting wheat price in 1998/99 will again be the low level of global stocks, possible spillovers from the other commodity markets would also lend support to firmer wheat prices. South Africa experiences hot and dry summers during an El Niño episode, with adverse effects on its agriculture and real GDP growth.