El Nino: Heating Up The Summer and the Ill-effects People Suffer

I’ve posed question about El Nino to fellow hubbers. I’ve got varied answers, ranging from positive to negative response. One hubber said that we cannot change the wrath of nature, We just have to accept it and be ready for the consequences. Other hubbers wrote that things that encouraged solutions for the matter. More suggestions added knowing first the meaning to draw some solutions about it. One reiterated that I should look in wikipedia. Well, thanks to my fellow hubbers who contributed to my question. It will help those affected by the phenomenon to be positive on this challenging prolonged hot summer, especially in the Philippines.

According to Wikipedia...

El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a climate pattern that occurs in tropical Pacific every five years or in the range of three to seven years of variation, otherwise known as “quasi-periodic.”

ENSO can either be called El Nino (drought) or La Nina (flood) which is characterized by warming or cooling of surface waters in the tropical eastern Pacific ocean and an atmospheric component, the Southern Oscillation or the changes in surface pressure in the tropical Western Pacific.

El Nino is the Spanish term for “the boy” or the “Christ child” and is often noticed in South America during Christmas season. La Nina is a Spanish term for the girl.

Effects of El Nino

El Nino carries many weather disturbances aside from extreme heat. Here in the Philippines, farmers suffer due to the dying of their crops (rice and vegetables) due to lack of water supply. One farmer whined about his cornfields. It was really devastating because his expectation to harvest abundantly will not be a reality anymore. Cloud seeding is not effective at this time.

Fish kill or deoxygenation of many fishes in the ocean or even in many commercial fish ponds is one of the result of El Nino. Even owners of poultry farms are complaining because of the pestilence of this phenomenon.

The government should declare a state of calamity due to this weather disturbance that will last until the end of May this year.

Even herding of animals or livestock, like carabaos, cows and goats are so difficult nowadays due to the scarcity of grasses in the fields (particularly rice fields).

Wildfire is the least I could think, but it just happened recently in one of the reserved forest or national park here in the country. Look what happened in California or Australia or even Brazil. Many reserved forests are accidentally burned due to extreme heat during summer.

Scarcity of food is apparent. Hand-to-mouth families are often pressured to do illegal things just to keep on living everyday. Here in our barrio, more and more carabaos are slaughtered in the rice fields by unscrupulous neighbors due to this period of drought.

There is a possibility of importing rice from other neighboring countries, like Thailand and Vietnam. We just have to wait for the declaration of emergency from the Malacanang or Malacanan palace, the abode of our president. (Note; State of calamity had been declared by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Mindanao due to the effects of El Nino.)

El Nino in the 80s

It was in the summer of 1984 when I experienced El Nino. I was still an elementary grader, back then. We cannot plant rice due to the extensive drought in our place. Luckily, my father planted mongo as an alternative crop. Others, depended on corn just to live the period.

When we went to our coconut plantation in the mountain, the fruits became smaller and smaller due to the extreme heat.

I still get scary when I remember the attack of the so-called army worms that left all plants they pass bared because they’ve eaten all the leaves.

Although the water level in the river were down, we still enjoyed a long deep during those long hot summer days.

El Nino 2010

Rotating brownout is rampant in the country due to the scarcity of water supply and some of the power plants need rehabilitation or repair.

While I was doing this hub, the unexpected cutting of power supply our area happened.

Two days after, this hub again suffered a rotating brownout early in the morning.