WATER seems to be a problem for much of Luzon and other areas. When “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” visited the Philippines, many died due to the influx of dam water in many areas of Luzon. Now comes El Niño, the severe lack of water, and government is at a loss of ways to soften its impact on the country.

Scientists say the deadly El Niño weather anomaly should dissipate by early summer in the northern hemisphere, but there is a chance a weak version will linger for the rest of 2010, according to a U.S. government report issued recently.

The federal government's Climate Prediction Center (CPC), a unit of the U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, said in a monthly update that the warm waters which are the hallmark of the phenomenon are slowly easing, and this indicates "a transition to ... neutral conditions'' in June or July.

But the CPC said there are "several models which suggest the potential of continued weak El Niño conditions through 2010, while others predict the development of La Niña conditions later in the year.''

El Niño means little boy in Spanish, and results in an abnormal warming of waters in the equatorial Pacific. It also normally disrupts hurricane formation in the Atlantic.

The anomaly wreaks havoc in global weather patterns, especially the Asia-Pacific region, and was first noticed by Latin American anchovy fishermen in the 19th century who named it after the Christ child because it normally appears during Christmastime.

La Niña has the opposite effect of El Niño. It leads to cooler waters in the Pacific Ocean and is said to spur storm formation during the annual hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean.

This year's El Niño was moderate to strong, according to the CPC, as sea surface temperatures stayed warm through February. But it was linked to severe winter storms which have lashed the eastern United States.

It was also blamed for the weak monsoon which badly damaged the cane crop in India, forcing the world's biggest sugar consumer import larger amounts of the sweetener and sparking a rally that drove prices to a $29-year high.

A severe dry spell has also hit the archipelago countries of Indonesia and the Philippines, forcing the latter to book large orders of rice. The Philippines is the world's biggest rice importer. Manila booked a record 2.6 million tons of the food staple for its 93 million people in 2010.

CPC said the effects of El Niño this spring would include drier-than-average weather over Indonesia.

This abnormal weather phenomenon has also caused water and power shortages in most of the Philippine archipelago. Alternating power outages are a frequent happening in most of Luzon. Mindanao is about to be declared under a state of calamity due to a power crisis.

In the United States, there should be above-average rain in the Southwest, the south-central states, and Florida, and below-average precipitation in the Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes region, CPC forecast.

If El Niño persists until June, that would bring the weather pattern into the start of the annual hurricane season in the Atlantic, raising the prospect it may again hinder the formation of storms in the area.

The last major El Niño struck in 1997/98, killing scores of people and causing billions of dollars in damages around the world through floods in Latin America and drought in Asia and Australia.

Scientists studying global warming in the Arctic have discovered a previously unknown source of methane working its way into the atmosphere, a source that is releasing large amounts of the gas each year.

Methane is, molecule for molecule, a far more potent global-warming gas than carbon dioxide. The newly discovered emissions are welling up from the continental shelf off Siberia's northern coast.

They are estimated at nearly eight million metric tons a year, making them roughly equal to the amount that, until now, scientists had attributed to emissions from all the world's oceans combined, the researchers calculate. Still, the emissions represent no more than about one percent of the total global emissions.

Their study is set for publication in the issue of the journal Science.

It's not clear whether this previously unknown source of atmospheric methane became active recently or represents a long-term source whose existence only now has come to light, several scientists say.

Scientists are keenly interested in filling in the blanks – how these emissions might change as the climate warms, writes Ed Brook, a geochemist at Oregon State University, in an e-mail exchange.

Yet during the past few years, atmospheric methane levels have increased after a period where concentrations stalled, says Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in Canada. Recent studies have suggested that the resumed increase is tied to methane sources in the northern hemisphere.

Is this emission connected to El Niño?/PN