El Niño in the third quarter this
year – July-August-September – the
government has started bracing for this
weather phenomenon, last experienced
in 1997-1998.
he Philippine Atmospheric,
Geophysical and Astronomical Services
Administration (PAGASA) has warned
the country, a basically agricultural economy, may experience below normal rainfall in the coming months.
And the days are warning the
population – with 33 degrees C or 91.4
degrees F on the average during the
past few days including today.
Meanwhile, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the Department of
Agriculture has to hurdle structural challenges and adopt new technology in its
operations to enhance farm production in
the Philippines with the challenge of El
Niño.
Mr. Marcos, also the agriculture secretary, admitted the department
has been busy carrying out emergency
measures designed to lower commodity
prices, citing the need to consolidate the
assets of farmers.
“What we are doing is we have
coordination with the CDA (Cooperative
Development Authority) to strengthen
cooperatives so we can bring the policies
to farmers faster,” the Chief Executive
said.
The strongest and most devastating in the past almost half a century
was the 1982-1983 El Niño, perhaps the
worst in recorded history.
During that period, trade winds
not only collapsed – they reversed and
its effects were long lasting as well.
Twelve years later, a wave of
warm water from the 1982 El Niño lived
on in 1994, and measured only eight
inches high and traveled about 8 kilometers an hour.
That caused weather-related
disasters on almost every continent:
Australia, Africa and Indonesia suffered
droughts, dust storms, and brush fires.
Peru was hit with the heaviest rainfall
in recorded history –11 feet in areas
where 6 inches was the norm.
Some rivers carried 1,000
times their normal flow.
During the past two decades,
the Philippines has experienced unusual droughts and floods due to the
climatological phenomena called El
Nino which occurs approximately once
every five years, while La Nina is less
frequent.
The El Niño in the 80s was
blamed for between 1,300 and 2,000
deaths and more than $13 billion in
damage to property and livelihoods.
During this period, the thermocline off the South American coast
dropped to about 500 feet.
On September 24, in just 24
hours, sea-surface temperatures along
the coastal village of Paita, Peru shot up
7.2 degrees F.
El Niño can deplete water supplies and cause significant losses in agricultural production.
In 2019, Metro Manila and
neighboring provinces experienced water shortage as the El Niño contributed
to a massive decline in rainfall. The
damage brought by the phenomenon to
agriculture reached around $8 billion.
“We have a window for anticipation.
One good anticipatory action is capturing what is available during the rainy
season,” Thelma Cinco, weather services chief of PAGASA’s climatology
and agrometeorology division, said in a
