Indonesia’s salt fields bloom under drought from El Niño’s baking heat

Salt farmers in Indonesia's West Java province are reaping the benefits of an El Niño-driven drought even as crop farmers brace for a prolonged challenge from the baking heat.The sprawling Southeast Asian tropical archipelago is grappling with an intensifying El Niño, a climate pattern that typically brings hotter, drier conditions across much of Southeast Asia, raising the risk of drought, wildfires and crop losses.As a result, by July more than half of the country's seasonal zones were engulfed by a longer-than-expected dry season, which is expected to peak in August. The Indonesian we…READ FULL ARTICLE