Chile and climate change: The drought comes to an end, beginning a long rainy cycle ...
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in its reports, concludes that 2017 will probably be one of the warmest years between records, and draws attention to the international community by making it aware of its concern because climate change indicators, such as the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, sea level rise and ocean acidification, have not decreased, but have increased, and these rates are expected to increase for 2018.
The increase in temperatures is a phenomenon that has brought different consequences, according to the objective conditions of the different regions of the planet. In some cases intense rainfall, and in others, prolonged droughts, as is the case of Chile.
Professor Fernando Santibáñez, from the Department of Engineering and Soils of the Center for Agriculture and the Environment of the University of Chile, argues that the global warming of the planet is causing climates to increase the frequency of events that can be threatening for agriculture and for human activity in general, such as heat waves, cold waves, very intense or out of season rainfall, and wind. "But the most worrying thing is the drought" observes the academic, and assures us that we have been coming out of a drought that is probably the longest in Chile's history, initiated in the first years of the 2000, according to its measurements.
Temperatures and drought
According to data from the Chilean Meteorological Directorate (DMC), the temperature of last September in the city of Santiago recorded the highest increase since 1950, rising almost 5 ° C above the normal average. Situation that is repeated in almost all the central zone of Chile, extending even to the austral Punta Arenas and Balmaceda, where for the first time the monthly maximum was 3,4 ° C, the highest since 1960.
Parallel to the phenomenon of temperatures, last winter was consolidated as the seventh driest since the middle of the last century, with 88,6 mm of rainwater falling, observing a deficit of 30% with respect to last year.
One of the causes that explain the phenomenon of this prolonged drought is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which is in a particularly dry phase, which together with the phenomenology of global warming, has an important and noticeable drying of the area. central and south of the country.
New cycle
Professor Santibáñez explains that the country's climate has historically gone through rainy and dry periods. These periods oscillate between 15 and 20 years according to the registered measurements, so it ensures that we are ad portas of the beginning of a couple of decades of rainy years that would begin before the 2020.
"It is expected that from the 2020 onwards the climate will become more rainy, so we should be in the transition towards a better period for agriculture", explains Santibáñez.
The researcher adds that when reading these large cycles, the behavior variable of shorter cycles must be added, with drier or rainier years, as a result of the influence of the El Niño and La Niña phenomena.
Source: Martín Carrillo O. - Blueberries Consulting
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