El Niño in Mexico: more rain, fewer fish More rainfall, changes in distribution of fish species could be seen in Baja Mexico News Daily | Thursday, November 19, 2015

El Niño in Mexico: more rain, fewer fish

More rainfall, changes in distribution of fish species could be seen in Baja

Mexico News Daily | Thursday, November 19, 2015

This year’s El Niño is expected to be one of the most intense in half a century, and will deliver a “conveyor belt” of storms to California, according to a NASA climatologist.

But what does it mean for Mexico?

Probably more rain and fewer fish, according to the Center for Scientific Investigation and Higher Education of Ensenada (CICESE). The prospects don’t sound as potentially disastrous as predictions for California, where heavy rains could wipe out crops, cause mudslides and batter beachside communities, says a report by the Los Angeles Times.

But more rain means more mosquitoes which means a greater danger of contracting dengue, chikungunya or even malaria. Fewer fish, meanwhile, could mean hardships for fishermen and the local economy in northwestern Mexico.

“Species such as the sardine will have a different distribution, possibly causing a major cost for fishing,” said Oscar Sosa of CICESE. “This will have a detrimental effect in terms of profit.”

He added that with the increase in warmer waters, tropical and semitropical species that have the ability to swim long distances “tend to distribute themselves in a more northerly direction, which they would not normally do.” However, it would not apply to all species, he added.

There have already been some rare sightings in California waters, including a couple of pufferfish, a largemouth blenny fish, cardinalfish and a whale shark.

El Niño has already affected Mexico, most notably in the form of Hurricane Patricia, which ravaged part of the Pacific coast last month.

Stronger effects are already being felt elsewhere, some good, others not.

Chile is blooming with flowers due to unusually high rainfall but Indonesia and the Philippines are seeing drought conditions appear. And the United Nations forecast last week that more than 2 million people in Central America will need food aid because of a drought made worse by El Niño.

Predictions by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) put El Niño 2015-16 as one of the most powerful since 1950 with effects that will be increasingly evident in the next four to eight months.

Earlier this month surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean just off Peru hit five degrees above average – even higher than the abnormally warm temperatures at the same time of year in 1997 that foreshadowed the strongest El Niño on record.