Needed: A Super El Nino Abhiyan

Why in the News

Global forecasters give a 97% probability that the 2026 El Niño will continue into spring 2027. India lacks systematic data on how such events hit its ecosystems and livelihoods, so a Super El Niño Abhiyan joining scientific evidence, administrative readiness and societal empathy is proposed.

What is a Super El Niño, and why does it matter for India?

1. What El Niño is: El Niño is an unusual warming of the Pacific Ocean. Because warm water drives moisture laden winds, a hot Pacific disrupts the winds that pull monsoon rains toward India.
2. Rare confidence: For the first time, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other institutions are highly confident in an El Niño forecast.
3. Strong event likely: NOAA puts 80% plus odds on a strong to very strong event, with sea surface temperatures over 2°C above normal, a rarely crossed threshold.
4. Global stakes: The UN warns this “supersized” El Niño could deal massive economic blows. Coral core records suggest the worst event in a millennium.
5. The takeaway: Strong El Niño years have coincided with India’s worst droughts, so a forecast this confident is a warning for farms, water and coasts.

Why is India already vulnerable?

1. Disasters as routine: With global warming intensifying extreme weather, 86% of days in 2023 saw an extreme weather event in India.
2. Wide exposure: About 85% of districts are exposed to floods, droughts or cyclones.
3. Weak monsoon: The southwest monsoon ended well below its long period average, the benchmark for normal rain. Some regions got half their normal September rain, hurting rice, pulses, cotton and maize.
4. Worse ahead: Reservoirs are low heading into the rabi (winter crop) season, and the main impact is expected only from November.

What could it do to ecosystems and coasts?

1. Unknown inland effects: No one knows how it will affect grasslands, forests, rivers, phenology (the timing of plant growth and fruiting), farmers or pastoralists.
2. Coral bleaching: Pacific temperatures are already 2.6°C above the 0.5°C El Niño threshold, so many reefs are expected to bleach and die.
3. Fragile recovery: Nature Conservation Foundation researchers recorded a 50% decline in Lakshadweep’s reefs even without a Super El Niño. Some had only begun recovering.
4. Marine heat stress: The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) predicts severe heat stress in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal peaking around March 2027, cutting catches of sardine and mackerel.

Why must evidence be gathered before the shock, not after?

1. Missing data: India has no systematic data on how El Niño events affect ecosystems and dependent communities.
2. Lost coral record: The 1998 El Niño destroyed 80 to 90% of live coral on most Lakshadweep reefs studied. It is known only because researchers like Rohan Arthur were measuring.
3. Call to ecologists: On September 16, 188 conservationists and researchers urged real time data collection and a joint effort across sectors instead of reacting after the fact.
4. On site measurement: Monitoring should cover coral bleaching, rainforest tree deaths, fire risk, urban heat islands (cities trapping heat) and animal behaviour on the ground, not only by satellite remote sensing.
5. Who pays: The government should facilitate access and funding, and philanthropic capital should treat the research as a moral imperative.

Challenges

1. Local forecast gap: Global El Niño odds do not translate into district rainfall forecasts farmers can act on.
2. Fragmented agencies: Weather, ocean and ecology data sit with separate bodies that rarely share them.
3. Access barriers: Research in protected sites needs permits. Eg. Entry to Lakshadweep requires a permit.

Way Forward

1. Shared data platform: The Ministry of Earth Sciences should pool India Meteorological Department (IMD), INCOIS and field ecology data on one open portal.
2. Fast track permits: Forest and island administrations should clear research access within days.
3. Lean season support: State fisheries departments should prepare income support if catches fall.

Conclusion

A strong El Niño on top of a weak monsoon makes the coming months a test of preparedness, not only of forecasting. What to watch is whether agencies start ground level monitoring of reefs, forests and livelihoods before heat stress peaks, so this event leaves evidence rather than anecdote.

Key numbers

1. Strong El Niño drought years in India: 1972, 2002 and 2009.
2. Cropland damaged by extreme weather (2023): more than 2.2 million hectares.
3. Projected Pacific anomaly: up to 4°C above the El Niño threshold.
4. Lakshadweep reef decline period: 1998 to 2025.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2017] With reference to ‘Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD)’ sometimes mentioned in the news while forecasting Indian monsoon, which of the following statements is/are correct? 1. IOD phenomenon is characterized by a difference in sea surface temperature between tropical Western Indian Ocean and tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean. 2. An IOD phenomenon can influence an El Nino’s impact on the monsoon. Select the correct answer using the code given below: (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2 Answer: B”