The heavy showers on Thursday (June 11), a day after media reports quoted weather people as saying this year's monsoon would not see much rain, accompanied welcome signs. Thursday's late-morning downpour in the city was preceded by another spell of showers the previous noon. It was followed by moderate showers the next day. All this seemed auspicious, making people hope for a full monsoon. After weeks of unbearable heat that parched the country, the post-shower cool has brought noticeable relief to the people in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country.
There is something worrying in the forecast of the weather people. That there will be less-than-expected rain this year has reasons to make people brace for the times of aridity. Monsoon comprises the cultivation and harvesting periods of some major crops, including paddy. Following the bumper yields of paddy, the spectre of inadequate rain and crop failure may prompt shocks for farmers. The annual rainfall intensity has weakened in the country over the decades. With the grand blast of Thursday's pre-monsoon showers in Dhaka belying glum predictions, people look forward to a monsoon with sufficient rains.
The forecast of lesser rain this year stems mainly from the rise in temperature of the Pacific Ocean waters. This has been caused by the erratically strong behaviour of the El Nino phenomenon in this ocean. It is in this area where the water-soaked winds and clouds of South Asian monsoon originate, and blow towards the sub-continent after crossing the Bay of Bengal. Thanks to the impact of El Nino, and the rise in Pacific water's temperature this year, the direction of the monsoon clouds is changing unpredictably. US-based meteorological experts have also predicted a belated and weak monsoon for South Asia this year. All this is a corollary to global warming.
The El Nino impact has been active in Bangladesh for quite a long time. This is by a stroke of luck that the country has not undergone recently the spell of a prolonged drought. Owing to the incidence of reduced rain, many regions in South Asia have lately had to cope with the drought scourge. However, drought-like conditions have prevailed in parts of Bangladesh in the past few years.
As a country dependent on agriculture, monsoon means a lot for Bangladesh. A time was when a little variation in rain frequency would leave adverse impact on the country's agri-production. The country has long become used to cultivating crop strains tolerant to different types of agri-related stresses. In line with this, the farmers have, since 2011, been producing rice tolerant to drought, submergence, salinity etc. It is the drought-tolerant rice, especially, that has saved scores of our farmers from the curse of dry monsoons in the recent past. As International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has observed, "Drought is the most widespread and damaging of all environmental stresses, affecting 23 million hectares of rain-fed rice in South and Southeast Asia."
Coming to Bangladesh, in 2010 the country witnessed the lowest rainfall in its previous 15 years, a change experts have blamed on the impact of global climate change. To be specific, drought affected about 100,000 hectares of the Barind and northern districts in July-September, 2010. The normal rice varieties in Bangladesh wither and die after 10-12 days if water is not available to the land. The drought-tolerant rice is said to have been tested successfully in these extreme conditions.
Despite the monsoon woes associated with our urban life, the season has a dominant place in the nation's rural ethos. The very essence of life in Bangladesh comes to many of its fruitions during full-blown monsoons. Rains define life in this land, as do the rivers. Here monsoon shapes some basic areas of life ranging from cultural heritage to the arts. And an aborted monsoon has always been bad news for the country's agriculture.
shihabskr@ymail.com
