El Nino is coming: scientists
Climate indicators are increasingly nearing levels associated with the drought-bringing El Nino weather event, which brings higher global temperatures and can lead to bushfires and water shortages.
El Nino, or a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, can prompt drought in Southeast Asia and Australia and heavy rains in South America, hitting production of food such as rice, wheat and sugar.
"The chances of El Nino occurring in 2015 have increased," the Australian weather bureau said last month.
"Ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific continue to be warmer than average, trade winds remain weaker than normal, and all models surveyed suggest further ocean warming will occur," it added.
Should an El Nino emerge, the system would likely bring below-average late winter and spring rainfall over eastern Australia and above-average daytime temperatures over the southern half of Australia.
This would hurt the wheat crop in Australia, the world's fourth-biggest exporter of the grain.
Wheat production is expected to total 24.39 million tonnes in the 2015/16 season starting July 1, Australia's chief commodity forecaster said this month, up 3 percent from this year's 23.61 million tonnes.
Another season of poor wheat production from Australian east coast farmers will extend headwinds for GrainCorp Ltd, the country's largest bulk grain handler.
El Nino, Arctic ice melt could mean colder winter in Europe
Next winter in Europe could be colder and drier than the previous two mild winters, which drove down gas and power consumption, the chief meteorologist at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon said.
Two factors pointed to potentially chillier winter weather - an El Nino phenomenon that could warm sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, and the melting of the Arctic ice cap.
"If El Nino is strong in the middle of the Pacific it could mean colder weather in Europe than during recent winters, because it tends to lead to more frequent developments of high-pressure systems which allow Arctic air to extend further south," Point Carbon's Georg Muller said.
"I think a stronger El Nino could materialise this year," he added.
In March, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center said Arctic sea ice had set a new winter record by freezing over the smallest extent since satellite records began in 1979.
The cap, however, has since then extended close to levels seen in recent years.
"If the Arctic ice cap shrinks more than normal during summer, it increases the likelihood of cold weather outbreaks," Muller said.
A smaller ice cap means more warmth going into the atmosphere from the Arctic Ocean, helping to develop a high-pressure system, which in turn could prevent warmer and wetter westerly flows from coming to Europe.
"If those two factors - a strong El Nino and shrinkage of the Arctic ice cap -- are to materialise, then we are more likely to see a colder winter than previous in Europe," Muller said.
A UN panel of climate scientists has linked the long-term shrinkage of the ice, by 3.8 per cent a decade since 1979, to global warming and says Arctic summertime sea ice could vanish in the second half of the century.
