“I am concerned about the statement by the British BOM that there will be a strong El Niño this summer,” Mr Briggs said.
“Astonishingly, they don’t seem to understand what is happening with El Niño.
“It could cause some farmers to make the wrong management decisions.
“The wild fires in Indonesia for example are due to the more than nine major erupting volcanoes and many more that are venting, which are super heating the atmosphere and preventing rain.
“My long-range forecasts have been 100 per cent accurate over the last five years.”
Mr Briggs said for an El Niño event to occur, it requires the following conditions:-
The El Niño / La Niña phenomenon, (Walker Circulation), which can vary significantly from year to year depending on the Milankovitch and Solar cycles and the proximity of Venus.
El Niño can only occur between December and May because it needs the summer solstice to initiate it.
It also needs the water in the Humboldt Current to be warm enough to cause the inversion layer over the Galapagos to collapse, causing it to rain heavily there, which then means it can’t send any moisture-laden clouds westward across the Pacific, resulting in droughts in Australia.
“Current conditions in Antarctica suggest that there is little chance of a warm Humboldt current this year,” Mr Brigg said.
“While the water temperature in the equatorial Pacific is higher than normal, it is still within the standard range for this time of year.
“Based on what I’m seeing, I believe the next Australian summer will be wet and cooler than last summer.
“What is more concerning is the volcanic activity in the Antarctic, which could release massive quantities of melt water into the Pacific, causing major flooding around the entire region.”
Mr Briggs said at this stage he was still predicting a very severe drought in 2028-2030.
“It is impossible to tell how man-made climate change in Europe is going to affect things, but at the moment there is such a build-up of moisture and water at the equator, that when things do start to recover at the poles, the whole world will experience a severe drought,” he said.
• Tertia Butcher is the editor of The Riverine Grazier in Hay.
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