This Year's El Niño One
of the Strongest to Date By Chris Orr, Editor of Weather Trader Dear Sovereign Investor, El Niño has emerged and it will be the over-arching geophysical event of the next 12 months, affecting crop cycles and weather patterns across the globe.
I knew it was coming and estimated its impact, but now that it has arrived, it is easier to calculate its maximum strength and how long it will last. It is also easier to quantify its effects.
The 1997-98 El Niño was the strongest recorded since reliable records began in 1950, and there have been four El Niño events since then which occurred in 2002-03, 2004-05, 2006-07 and 2009-10. I expect this one to be stronger than the last one and one of the strongest since 1950.
In fact, its impact is already being felt … Advertisement
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As promised, El Niño reared its ugly head in the triangle bounded by northern Peru, the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador on April 28. The region now has sea surface temperatures that are 3.0 to 3.5 degrees Celsius warmer than normal. There's also a large area of water along the equator within 20 degrees longitude of the International Date Line that's warmer than usual. While a few degrees warmer might not seem like a lot, once these two areas couple, there will be more changes to the weather around the world.
One way to gauge the strength of this season's El Niño is by measuring the water east of Australia. The ocean there is usually colder than normal during strong El Niño events. Since the middle of May, the Coral Sea has cooled down from its warmer-than-usual temperatures, suggesting El Niño is on the rise. Right now, the overall pattern of the tropical Pacific Ocean sea-surface temperature looks very similar to late May 1997, which marked the beginning of the strongest El Niño in half a century.
Based on what I see today, this El Niño will be a 1.7 to 2.1 event, making it at least the 6th strongest El Niño since 1950.  Forecasting El Niño's Strength
Weather and El Niño follow cycles. It is useful to go back and look at past weather patterns to determine what this year's will looks like. This year we have a temperature pattern over the North Pacific which is a telltale sign that we have a developing El Niño — the seas in the western North Pacific are colder than normal, while the seas in the eastern North Pacific are warmer than normal. This pattern showed up in 1972, the third strongest El Niño since 1950. Using this information as a guide, I think this El Niño will be similar to or slightly weaker than the 1972-73 El Niño.
Temperatures are five to six degrees Celsius warmer than normal about 30 to 130 meters below the ocean's surface, west of northern Peru. These waters will eventually rise to the surface and spread west toward Indonesia, setting the stage for the peak of this El Niño sometime this winter.
This El Niño should start to wind down next spring, fade away during the summer and disappear in the fall of 2015. It is entirely possible that this El Niño will be followed by La Niña by March 2016. El Niño Impacts I want to take a moment to dispense with the notion that the drought in Brazil and Indonesia, Central America's coffee rust and India's sputtering monsoon are due to anthropological global warming (AGW). The culprit is actually El Niño (and a couple of other ocean currents). Rest assured that when you read about drought in Africa, a large number of typhoons and other cataclysmic events, that those are just weather events swirling around our planet, not long-term ecological shifts that the overly-excited proponents of global warming would have you believe.
El Niño is already causing drought in Australia where the wheat harvest is down and they're selling off cattle. Dry weather across Indonesia, the Ivory Coast and Ghana is hurting the cocoa crop. The Indian monsoon is late. Drought has damaged Brazil's coffee and soon drier weather will cut the harvest in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Historically, El Niño has flooded Chile and Peru's copper mines. Indonesia's drought means there will be a shortage of electricity for the country's nickel mines. I also suspect late this year that heavier-than-normal rain will fall on Brazil, slowing harvests of sugar and coffee during the 2014-15 growing season.
The list will expand as El Niño grows stronger and moves through its cycle. I'll be taking advantage of those impacted commodities and businesses in Weather Trader. There's a silver lining in every cloud,
Chris Orr
Editor, Weather Trader P.S. El Niño will continue to wreak havoc around the globe, affecting crop production levels. There will be a number of great investment opportunities that arise as a result. To learn more about how you can profit from changes in the weather ahead of the rest of the investing crowd, I will be one of the many presenters at the Total Wealth Symposium this September. To see the entire line up of presenters, click here. | |
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