El Niño has declined, one of the strongest recorded

 Impacts of El Niño on crop yield anomalies for four crops

Impacts of La Niña on crop yield anomalies for four crops.

The El Niño that we have experienced in 2023-24 has now reached its peak and is on the decline, there are signs indicating that it will transit into neutral conditions in the April-June month (Becker, 2024). El Niño had its peak in December and is one of the five strongest ever on record, together with climate change this has fueled the record high temperatures and extreme events (WMO, 2024).


In a report from WMO, the World Meteorological Organization, it is stated that there is a 60% chance of neutral conditions in April and June. There are chances that La Niña is developing later in the year, but the odds of that happening are currently uncertain. El Niño happens roughly every two to seven years, typically enduring for nine to 12 months. This natural climate phenomenon is characterized by elevated ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Its effects ripple across the globe, shaping weather systems and storm activity in various regions. 


WMO Secretary-General Saulo said; “ Every month since June 2023 has set a new monthly temperature record – and 2023 was by far the warmest year on record. El Niño has contributed to these (...). Ocean surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific clearly reflect El Niño. But sea surface temperatures in other parts of the globe have been persistently and unusually high for the past 10 months. The January 2024 sea-surface temperature was by far the highest on record for January”.(WMO, 2024)


There is an emphasis on that the early signs of either an El Niño and La Niña, should start decision makings that prevent catastrophes. Saulo also said that; “ El Niño events have a major impact on societies and economies. Accurate seasonal forecasts from the WMO community helped countries  prepare in advance to try to limit the damage in climate sensitive sectors like agriculture, (...)” (WMO, 2024). 


The significant negative and positive impacts on the yields associated with El Niño, the impacts appear in up to 22%–24% of an negative impact and 30%–36% positive impact on the areas harvested worldwide. La Niña on the other hand has negative impacts on up to 9–13% of harvested areas, with positive impacts being limited to up to 2–4% of harvested areas worldwide. El Niño likely improves the global-mean soybean yield but appears to reduce the yields of maize, rice and wheat in most cases, although the magnitude of the impacts varies slightly between the different methods you can use to calculate the normal or average yield. The global-mean yields of all four crops during La Niña years tend to be below normal (Luo et al, 2014)



Becker 2024: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/march-2024-enso-update-award-season



WMO 2024:

https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/el-nino-weakens-impacts-continue


Luo et al, 2014:

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4712

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