Whatsapp groups scare more than El Niño – 09/21/2023 – Shuttle

El Niño has not arrived yet, but it is already in the making. Based on current information, however, it is unlikely to be a super El Niño, as is being reported. Just looking at the climate, this will be a calmer year. The assessments are by Marco Antônio dos Santos, agrometeorologist at Rural Clima.

“I’m more worried about the news that will circulate in WhatsApp groups than the effect of El Niño itself,” he said this Thursday (21) at Agri Week, an event by the consultancy Safras & Market that assesses the prospects for the 2023 harvest. /24.

Brazil could experience the same scenario as the North American harvest, when climate models indicated specific problems, but much of the news showed a much more complicated scenario than what actually occurred.

As a result, Brazilian producers were influenced by the news and delayed corn sales, waiting for the announcement of a crop failure in the United States and, consequently, an increase in prices.

With the advance of the North American harvest, the numbers show a good harvest, especially corn, which was close to the record already recorded, says Santos.

Brazil is in a pressure cooker, and heat is taking over the country due to a mass of dry air. Temperatures are expected to reach record levels in the coming days. Furthermore, relative air humidity is extremely low, especially in central regions, indicating desert-like conditions.

This climate will only change in the middle of next week, when new rains will come. The challenges remain for Matopiba (a region that encompasses Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia), which will not have rain.

Soybean planting advances from the first week of October, but not at the pace desired by producers, as rains will be irregular. From the middle of next month, however, the rain regime should consolidate, according to the agrometeorologist.

It still doesn’t rain as it should because El Niño is not consolidated. Although the Pacific Ocean is warm and its central region has an anomaly of 1.5º, characterized as moderate to strong, the atmosphere is not fully connected.

Previous phenomena brought rain more quickly. Now there is rain in the South and no rain in the North. The configuration of a super El Niño would require a water warming anomaly above 2º in the Pacific, which climate models are not signaling.

For Santos, El Niño is still in the making because, officially, according to international meteorological rules, the phenomenon is only characterized when the five-quarter moving average indicates 0.5º or more. Three have already been registered. It will be difficult, however, for the temperature to exceed 2º, as occurred in 2015 and 2016. It should be between 1º and 1.5º.

Producers will have to live with more rain in Argentina, Paraguay, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná. The central regions will have irregular rains, but there will be no absence of them.

The effects of El Niño require producers to manage and make decisions at the right time. The irregular rains in the central and northern regions force producers to keep an eye on humidity over the next 30 days. The rains in the South could make it difficult to plant rice and soybeans and disrupt the wheat harvest.

Everything must be within normal limits, but some products may suffer the effects more than others. Coffee, which had an early flowering, will be affected by these very high temperatures, says Santos.

The sugarcane sector is expected to have a greater number of days of harvest interruptions, but the rains in the coming months will reinvigorate the plant’s potential for the next harvest.

Rice is a crop that could experience the biggest problems, due to delays in planting. Soybeans may have a shortened cycle this harvest, says the agrometeorologist.

Brazil is not alone in facing climate change. Asia and Oceania will experience severe droughts, which will affect the production of coffee, sugar cane, soybeans and corn in these regions.

Santos believes that the 2023/24 harvest will not be a record, but sees it as within normal limits. Soybeans, in the worst case scenario, will repeat the volume of 2023. Corn increases production in the summer, but loses in the off-season. This would equal this year’s volume.

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