This is the National University of Singapore (NUS)’s Town Green, as advertised on the University Town website.
Contrast that with what I saw today.
(NUS’ management decision to maintain this ‘Green’ by utilizing 2m-radial sprinklers in the mid-afternoon sun is hilariously futile.)
“But hold on, is this not tropical Singapore?”, you might wonder. “Why does it look so brown?”
Weather is not a typical topic of conversation in Singapore, since the daily forecast is consistently 30 degrees with a chance of thunderstorms, but it is unusual for it to have been so dry in January – to put it in perspective, I have been in Singapore for six weeks and have seen it rain only three times.
Here is where I tell you a secret: for Singapore, it might just be an El Nino year. In a “normal” year, the western Pacific receives the warmest water and the most rainfall. In an El Nino year, the warm water and rainfall moves eastward. The diagram below visualizes this (the landmass on the left is the western Pacific, including SE Asia and Australia; the landmasses on the right are the Americas).
ENSO events (El Nino-Southern Oscillation – the relationship between the western and eastern tropical Pacific) involve complicated geography, oceanography and atmospheric science, and results in a variety of issues including droughts, flooding, loss of fisheries and so on… but if you just want to remember what it all means, I will introduce you to El Nino (“little boy” in Spanish), who lives in the Western Pacific. He is angry, because he is so hot and has had no rain for awhile. He is pointing across the Pacific, where it is raining in the middle of the ocean instead. El Nino is originally from Peru, and his family over there are not catching very many fish this year because of the warmer water.
As I post this, it is finally raining in Singapore. Let us hope that El Nino sets up his lone, feeble sprinkler another year.
Taste For Destruction 