Dry spell ‘to drag on, effects to worsen’

After enduring the driest year in over half a century, Barbadians are being warned to brace for more drought-like conditions and the increased threat of heatwaves throughout 2020, according to local experts.

So serious is the threat, that leading meteorologist at the Barbados Meteorological Service, Sabu Best admitted that if current trends continue, authorities may be forced to declare a nationwide drought.

In the meantime, Climatologist Dr Cedric Van Meerbeeck predicts that more fires, lower crop yields and a decrease in available water over the dry season could become the norm.

The officials were reviewing last year’s record low rainfall conditions and providing an update on the expected conditions for the new year during a press conference at the Husbands, St James headquarters of the Caribbean Institute for Hydrology and Meteorology (CIMH).

Sabu Best

According to Best, consensus from all affected stakeholders would be necessary for authorities to declare an all out drought, but he acknowledged that a “meteorological drought” was impending.

“If the present trends continue without any significant deviation from the forecast, we will be faced with a drought condition,” he said, before indicating this was no need for citizens to panic because local authorities would do everything to prepare citizens for the threat.

Best added: “It’s not Armageddon and it has happened before, though not as significantly as it is right now. We can pull together and get through this, through the resources of the BWA, through their messages to the public and the Ministry of Agriculture advising the population beforehand of particular crops that we can plant. That is the way we could help mitigate that.”

According to CIMH Agro-meteorologist, Adrian Trotman, Barbados has been hit by “exceptionally dry” conditions for over 12 months and over the majority of the year experienced rainfall amounts in the lowest two per cent in recorded history.

Data from CIMH and the local met service both eventually confirmed that in 2019, Barbados recorded the lowest levels of rainfall in a calendar year since 1942. But according to their research, this trend started from as early as January 2018.

Given the length of time Barbados has been experiencing the dry conditions, Dr Van Meerbeek has warned that the issues will soon start to manifest more overtly.

“We are talking about plants withering, but we are also talking about the risk of fires increasing, crop yields that might be affected at some stage… our best knowledge at this stage is that Barbados will be rather dry,” he said, while predicting that even the early part of this year’s wet season might be delayed by dry spells.

Dr Cedric Van Meerbeeck

In addition to decreased rainfall caused by last year’s El Nino phenomenon, experts blamed sharp increases in temperature for the challenges, which according to Dr. Van Meerbeek, will considerably increase the chances of heatwaves.

“The number of heatwaves in the Eastern Caribbean has enormously increased since 1995. Again we are not the agency to issue a statement saying that Barbados is now in a heatwave, but if you take a methodology that is globally accepted, the number of heatwaves have definitely increased since 1995 and as Adrian mentioned, heat and drought go together,” revealed the climatologist.

He added: “In September and October particularly, we had many days that were really warm and more so than on average than we would have had in history. So it’s not just that the daytime and nighttime averages have increased, but also the heatwaves that have increased in frequency and intensity and that amplifies droughts.”
kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb