The world might be on the cusp of more tempestuous weather, agricultural weather analysts say.
They will be closely watching the evolution of the El Nino-La Nina situation in coming months and comparing it to past oscillations.
“This looks an awful lot like a change in the decadal pattern,” Scott Yuknis of Climate Impact Co. told Cereals North America.
Analysts discussed a complex array of global weather phenomena during the two-day conference in Winnipeg but seemed to agree that the coming months could signal big weather impacts for global food production.
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A powerful El Nino is now operating, producing dry weather in Southeast Asia, but many are calling for a switch to a La Nina next summer, which could produce dry conditons for 2016-17 South American crops and damage production in key “demand markets.”
A La Nina could be relatively beneficial for North American farmers next year because demand markets are most sensitive to food shortages and likely to be most aggressive in buying whatever food they need, said agriculture weather specialist Corey Cherr of Thomson Reuters.
Yuknis said he thinks the relatively moderate weather of the past 15 years might be about to be re-placed by more volatile ups and downs, but it’s too soon to tell.
“We’re at a crossroads on global climate now,” said Yuknis.
“There is talk within the scientific community now that there is a decadal change taking place.”
The weak El Ninos of recent years might be replaced by stronger events, which would affect world crop production more than usual.
The weather patterns might be-come like those of the 1980s and 1990s, with more intense droughts in Western Canada.
Looking to 2016-17, Kyle Tapley of MDA Weather Services said he is particularly watching the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the possible appearance of La Nina.
“When we get into that scenario where we have a positive PDO and La Nina, that’s when you need to be looking out for some extremes in the weather,” said Tapley.
That would be the situation next summer if analysts are correct.
Cherr said future weather problems might not devastate crops the way they did in the past, but that doesn’t mean they won’t profoundly affect markets.
“Your serious disastrous losses that you used to see 30 years ago across a lot of these places, that we might have under control (because of better crop varieties and farming methods), but the kind of stacking of all these little losses, chipping away at supply, in a way that we didn’t see so frequently, more than likely is going to be the kind of risk (markets face),” said Cherr.
