new delhi

The Indian Meteorological Department has expressed doubts about whether the predicted return of a strong El Niño this year will cause drought in some parts of India and affect the seasonal monsoons.

“The southwest Indian monsoon arrived a week late but, contrary to fears, it has so far been progressing normally and has already covered most of the country,” says R. R. Kelkar, a senior official of the department.

Kelkar was reacting to statements by Ants Leetmaa, director of the Climate Prediction Center of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, that the ‘big’ El Niño predicted this year for the equatorial Pacific is likely to bring drought to India, South Africa, Australia and parts of Brazil (see above).

According to Indian scientists, India's monsoon is “a gigantic complex phenomenon” in which El Niño is just one of several contributory factors. In the monsoon season, which runs from June to September, about 80 cm of rain falls throughout India. The department believes that India will get around 92 per cent of that amount this year, which is considered satisfactory.

This prediction is based on an empirical 16-parameter model that the department has been using successfully since 1988 (see Nature 342, 4; 1989). Kelkar says that the El Niño phenomenon has been incorporated into calculations for this year's forecast.

After analysing monsoon rainfall data between 1951 and 1990, Indian meteorologists say that there is no clear correlation between El Niño and the Indian monsoon. “There have been many years in the past when monsoon rainfall was in excess or normal in El Niño years, and there were years when rainfall was deficient when there was no El Niño,” says Kelkar. Indeed, India had a normal monsoon in 1983 when Peru witnessed its worst El Niño since 1950.

India's monsoons over the past nine years have proved unexceptional, and the US warning has come as something of a surprise to the government. Although the meteorological department claims that it has allayed fears, the agriculture ministry is preparing to install pumps and borewells for irrigating crops, in case the rains fail.