Facing climate change, El Nino

Are the severe dry, hot spells that this part of the world including China, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh and India recently experienced the fallout from the dreaded climate change? Or was it just a sudden change in the weather pattern? Though common belief is that it has something to do with the climate change, scientists chose to wait before reaching a firm conclusion. The World Weather Attribution (WWA), a project based on academic collaboration that studies extreme weather events to see if those make a pattern that can be said to be the tell-tale sign of climate change, carried out a study in May last. To go by WWA's findings, the heat wave that hit Bangladesh and India was "made at least 30 times more likely by climate change". That means it was very much of 'climate change'-origin.
In many parts of Asia in April, the temperature rose at least by 2.0 degrees Celsius as a result. As reports go, on April 15, Dhaka's temperature crossed 40 degrees Celsius. Six northern and eastern cities in India recorded temperatures above 44 degrees centigrade. In Uttar Pradesh, the temperature crossed 45 degrees Celsius. So, what about the promise of keeping the world's average temperature well below a rise of 2.0 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level and making efforts to keep global warming within the limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius as set by the famous Paris Agreement?
This would mean that humanity has already hit the global warming threshold of 1.5 degrees centigrade. That, in other words, would mean that the world is now indeed 1.5 degrees warmer than it was during the second half of 19th century after which timeline humanity started to burn fossil fuel on a massive scale to gradually make the world warmer than the pre-industrial era.
In that case, if WWA's calculation is correct, then Bangladesh has already crossed the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold! And, so has India! But there is no preparation afoot to ward off the cataclysm. The Ukraine war has made the world as it were blind to the fact that climate change, a product of human action, is the number one enemy of humanity. To fight it, the world has to be united, not divided by ideologies and wars, against burning of fossil fuel. But what is now happening worldwide is quite the opposite, a madness over the control and use of the worst type of carbon-emitting fossil fuels like coal and oil. It is only making matter further worse.
Alongside the high temperature related to carbon emission worldwide, there is yet another player at work. It is the El Nino effect. According to scientists at the US National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in May, the El Nino effect has again begun to show up.
What is El Nino? It is a hot phase of the waters of the Pacific Ocean near the equator that occurs every two to seven years. It becomes noticeable off the South American coast. Once that happens, the warm waters begin to spread to other parts of the ocean. If the condition persists, at a stage, the atmosphere that picks up the oceanic heat spreads it from the ocean to the land.
South American fishermen first discovered this behaviour of the waters of the Pacific Ocean in the 1600s. They called the phenomenon 'Little Boy', which in Spanish is El Nino. Usually, the world experiences hottest months the year after the El Nino event takes place in the Pacific. The last hottest year on record was 2016, the after-effect of El Nino. As defined by the US scientists, if the ocean waters remain 0.5 degrees Celsius hotter than usual for over a month and the atmosphere heating up as a result persists for a long period, then it is El Nino. Those conditions were met in May, according to the US scientists at NOAA. They believe there is more than 80 per cent chance that by the end of 2023, the temperature may cross the moderate level.
In that case, the world may see the impact of what is called the 'super El Nino'. So, what would be the other possible consequences of the El Nino, that is in all probability going to visit us next year? The symptoms will include very dry weather conditions in Australia and parts of Asia and partial monsoon in the Indian subcontinent. In fact, this part of the world has already started to experience that. The impacts on the economies and the human settlements are obviously going to be heavy.
It may be recalled at this point that a strong El Nino visited the world with its devastating impacts during 1997-98. The storms and floods took their huge tolls with around 23,000 dead and damage to assets worth over USD5.0 trillion? What has then 2024 in store for us?
The subcontinent of which Bangladesh is an integral part is then facing the double whammy of the climate change caused by human action and the old oceanic event, El Nino? What this means, there will be more heat waves, droughts, storms, floods, you name it and they are all leaving a trail of death and devastation in their wake!

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