Climate change influenced Typhoon Haiyan

Some scientists are making the link between climate change and Typhoon Haiyan. Unfortunately, much of the corporate media remain largely silent about the link, perhaps because large corporations which contribute advertising revenue to the media, are among the major culprits of greenhouse gas emissions.

According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Professor Will Steffen, a researcher at the ANU and member of the Climate Council, said scientists understand how a hotter, moister climate is already affecting storms such as Haiyan.

“Once [cyclones] do form, they get most of their energy from the surface waters of the ocean,” Professor Steffen said. “We know sea-surface temperatures are warming pretty much around the planet, so that’s a pretty direct influence of climate change on the nature of the storm.”

Data compiled from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows sea temperatures were about 0.5 to 1 degree above normal in the waters to the east of the Philippines as Haiyan began forming. The waters cooled in the storm’s wake, an indication of how the storm sucked up energy.

While there may be fewer tropical cyclones in the future, the frequency of more intense cyclones could increase, adds the SMH.

A peer-reviewed report in Nature Geoscience published in 2010 by a team including Australia’s Dr John McBride, found that models indicate a shift towards stronger storms in the future.

“Existing modelling studies … consistently project decreases in the globally averaged frequency of tropical cyclones, by 6 to 34 per cent,” the report said. “Balanced against this, higher-resolution modelling studies typically project substantial increases in the frequency of the most intense cyclones, and increases of the order of 20 per cent in the precipitation rate within 100 kilometres of the storm centre.”

Since the atmosphere can hold 4 to 8 per cent more water per degree of warming, scientists say rain events have the potential to get more extreme, including cyclones.

The risk is for intense rainfall and flooding when they hit land and drop their water as rainfall increases with global warming, Professor Steffen said. “They’re packing more punch in terms of the wind and also the water vapour or rain that they are carrying.”

Much of the devastation in typhoons comes with the related storm surge. Since climate change is already raising sea levels, the risk for severe inundation is also increasing, Dr Steffen said.

Meanwhile, Najib is saying Malaysia is still committed to a 40 per cent cut in carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 2020, using 2005 as a baseline. But there is a caveat: this is subject to the availability of technology transfer and funding from developed nations.

The establishment points to Malaysia’s forested land mass of 56.4 per cent and green cover of 74 per cent as a sign that it is serious about reducing carbon emission. But does the forest cover include secondary forests growth after the primary rainforests have been logged. And does the green cover include mono-culture plantations, which harm biodiversity?