Topsy-turvy weather in 2017?
SEASONAL changes in our weather patterns seem to have disappeared in whatever climate zone we may appear in atlases, but we should not confuse the vagaries of our weather with climate.
As a long-time supporter of Manchester United, I especially like the analogy drawn by a British meteorologist. He likens the difference between weather and climate as “rather like a game of football, when Manchester United may have a series of losing streaks, but over the decades they are one of the UK’s top performing soccer teams”.
An unexpected spell of cold weather in the United States and in Europe may seem remarkable, but it makes no difference to the longrunning warming trend in climate.
US President Donald Trump needs to get a grip on what he tweets on social media. One of his observations in 2018 has been, “Perhaps we could use a little bit of that old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against.”
The fact that the ‘Big Apple’ recorded -23 degrees Celsius on New Year’s Eve, with the US eastern seaboard, down to Florida and across to Texas, all now facing record-breaking freezing temperatures provoked such a response.
Unfortunately, the president had not appreciated that there is a tilt on the earth’s axis and because of this, cold temperatures are commonplace in winter time.
If Trump had looked westwards from the White House, he would have seen the raging fires in California after a prolonged period of drought. If he had opened his eyes even wider, he would have observed the unusually high temperatures across Central and Eastern Asia, Eastern Europe, and especially in the Arctic regions. The staggering fact remains that since climate records began, of the 17 hottest years ever, 16 have occurred this century – 2017 will also prove to have been an exceptionally warm year. World weather watch Early last November, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) published a paper, highlighting the vagaries of worldwide weather patterns. I hope that despite the necessary use of data, readers will find these examples of its findings illuminating. I hasten to add that this is merely a precis of the WMO report. Temperatures The mean global temperature from 1981 to 2010 was 14.31 degrees Celsius, but last January to September, it was nearly 0.4 degrees Celsius warmer, setting 2017 on course to be the warmest ever year on record without an El Nino event.
Record high temperatures were set in Italy, North Africa, parts of eastern and southern Africa and in the Asian regions of the Russian Federation (over 50 degrees Celsius) and also in China. However, the northwestern United States and western Canada were cooler than the average.
Precipitation, snow and ice levels
Parts of Southeast Asia, Western China and Argentina were much wetter than average while the whole of the US received its wettest ever weather. Yet India recorded a 5 per cent below average rainfall in its monsoon season. However, with above average rainfall in the northeastern areas of that subcontinent, leading to notable flooding.
Most Mediterranean countries received lower than average rainfalls, with Italy experiencing its driest January to September readings ever. Somalia, Gabon. Mongolia and South Africa were very dry.
The Arctic sea-ice was at a very low level but, however, persistent low pressure systems over the central Arctic area reduced ice loss in the northern hemisphere’s summer months. The Greenland ice cap saw an increase of 40 billion tons of ice owing to above average snowfall and a very short melting season, with a minute relief from a declining trend, which has lost 3,600 billion tons of ice mass in the last 15 years. Ocean heat gains, acidification Sea surface temperatures are destined to be among the three highest on record and very near a record highest level. The El Nino event of 2015 to 2016 affected coral reefs worldwide.
Tropical waters, however, have seen a significant fall in pH levels in the last five years, thus affecting the health of coral reefs through their natural process of calcification. Extreme weather impacts The WMO report classifies these into several categories: tropical cyclones, flooding, drought, major heatwaves, and wildfires. The North Atlantic has experienced many high impact hurricanes, starting in August with Harvey and continuing, in rapid succession, with Irma and Maria in September. Both battered the Texan coast and the Caribbean Islands. In mid-October, Ophelia reached major hurricane strength, causing considerable damage in Ireland and contributing to grave wildfires in Portugal and northwest Spain.
In the UK, we, too have suffered cyclone Eleanor, with winds reaching 140km per hour battering our western shorelines and plastering the north of Ireland, Scotland and northern England in heavy snow.
As the WMO report frankly states, “There is no proof, as yet, that climate change makes hurricanes/cyclones more or less frequent but it is likely that human-induced climate change makes rainfall more intense and that ongoing sea-level rise exacerbates storm surge impacts … in coastal areas.” Flooding Last January and February, California and Nevada recorded their second and highest rainfall respectively, causing landslides and the temporary evacuation of thousands of people. Just recently this year, California also suffered flooding followed by mudslides.
March 2017 saw flooding in Peru, leaving 70,000 people homeless and destroying the maize harvest. In April, a landslide in Colombia caused the death of 273 people. In June and July, major flooding of China’s Yangtze River basin killed 56 people with economic losses amounting to US$5 billion.
Exceptionally heavy, persistent rainfall (1,459mm in two weeks) in August led to a huge landslide in Freetown, Sierra Leone with 500 deaths. Over 40 million people were displaced in the Indian subcontinent’s countries of Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Whilst monsoonal flooding has always occurred there, it was the exceptionally heavy rainfall in two days in mid-August that caused the disasters. Drought East Africa in 2016 suffered well-below-average rainfall, continuing through into 2017 during the once March-into-May long rains’ season. Southeast Ethiopia, Somalia and northern Kenya were most affected. In Somalia alone, 60 per cent of cattle died and 50 per cent of all cropland was drought-stricken.
Since last February, the number of people on the brink of famine has doubled to 800,000, with 760,000 of these now refugees. The 2017 drought in Kenya was declared a national disaster with water restrictions imposed in the capital, Nairobi.
A 62 per cent fall in Italian olive oil production was due to Italy’s hottest ever January to August, when rainfall dropped by 36 per cent.
Major heatwaves, destructive wildfires
Nearly a third of the world’s population now live in extreme climatic conditions that receive extreme heatwaves. With an ever-increasing elderly population and expanding young population, these more frequent events are detrimental to health, leading to human loss of life as well as of wildlife. In both the northern and southern hemispheres, record high temperatures have been experienced. In southeast and southwest Asian countries, these were experienced from May to June.
Drought, coupled with extreme heat, led to numerous outbreaks of deadly fires. Exceptional forest fires occurred in the western coastal countries worldwide and even in eastern Australia and parts of New Zealand. Chile recorded the loss 614,000ha of forest and 11 deaths in the summer months of 2016 to 2017. There have also been raging forest fires in Portugal, Spain, Southern France, Italy, Croatia, as well as in western Canada and California. In the latter location, there has been the greatest number of wildfire deaths for nearly 100 years.
This report has been inclusive of all major weather events in 2017. It is best summed up by the actual words of the WMO secretary general, “We have witnessed extraordinary weather in 2017. Many of these events … bear the tell-tale signs of climate change by increased greenhouse gas concentrations from human activities.”
As a postscript I should, humbly, like to point all Malaysian industrialists, agriculturalists, water engineers, urban planners, architects and building constructors towards the Malaysian Meteorological Department’s publication of 2009, giving us all a detailed scientific account of the predicted national changes in weather patterns and ultimately in climate up to the final year of our 21st century.
For more on the climate change scenarios for Malaysia (2001 to 2099) go to www.met.gov.my.