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Indonesia told to brace for El Niño in latter part of 2022
The La Niña weather phenomenon, which is associated with intense rainfall in Indonesia, is expected to wane after the first few months of this year, a scientist has said, as the global climate cycle is projected to transition into El Niño in the second half of 2022.
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Tulungagung Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) personnel deliver clean water to residents in the regency in East Java on Aug. 31. The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) estimates that several regions in the country will be hit by extreme drought during the transition from dry to rainy season. (Antara/Destyan Sujarwoko)
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he La Niña weather phenomenon, which is typically associated with intense rainfall in Indonesia, is expected to wane after the first few months of this year, a scientist has said, as the global climate cycle is projected to transition into El Niño in the second half of 2022.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines La Niña as the “large-scale cooling of the ocean surface temperature in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.” Meanwhile, El Niño refers to the large-scale heating of the ocean surface temperature in the Pacific Ocean.
In Indonesia, the two phenomena tend to trigger extreme weather, with El Niño typically associated with forest and peatland fires, as well as drought, while hydrometeorological disasters such as floods and landslides occur more often during the La Niña season.
National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) climatology and meteorology researcher Edvin Aldrian said the current La Niña season, which the WMO said started in September last year, would soon reach its peak and would be over by the end of April.
After that, it was likely the global climate would swing into El Niño later this year, said Edvin.
“It is likely that the climate pendulum will swing back to El Niño, albeit a relatively moderate [El Niño] in 2022,” Edvin said in a webinar last week.
He went on to say that related natural disasters such as forest and peatland fires could be on the rise this year due to El Niño and called on the government to start preparing measures to mitigate such types of disasters.
