The environment minister said on Wednesday that Malaysia, which has been experiencing a heatwave lately, will likely experience weak El Nino conditions starting in June.
The environment minister said on Wednesday that Malaysia, which has been experiencing a heatwave lately, will likely experience weak El Nino conditions starting in June.
Mr. Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, the Minister of Natural Resources, Environment, and Climate Change stated that the intensity of the weather phenomenon will increase to moderate levels by November and cause a 20 to 40% reduction in rainfall.
According to what he said in Parliament, some of the effects of the El Nino conditions will also be felt in March or April of next year.
According to Mr. Nik Nazmi, Malaysia is not currently anticipated to experience an extreme heatwave with daily highs exceeding 38 degrees Celsius.
However, he continued, “there is still a chance that the country will experience slightly higher temperatures than normal, with an increase of between 0.5 deg C and 1 deg C.”
Early signs of El Nino’s hot, dry weather are posing a threat to Asia’s food producers, with analysts predicting that production of rice and palm oil will suffer in Thailand and Indonesia, which together supply 80% of the world’s palm oil.
The second-largest producer of the widely used palm oil in the world is Malaysia. According to the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, in late May, the country’s production of crude palm oil could decline by between 1 million and 3 million tonnes as a result of El Nino in 2012.
The El Nio-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) warm phase, also known as El Nio, is characterised by a band of warm ocean water in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific. The ENSO is an oscillation of the tropical central and eastern Pacific Ocean’s sea surface temperature (SST).
High air pressure in the western Pacific and low air pressure in the eastern Pacific are both indicators of El Nio. Phases of El Nio are known to last two to seven years.