Recent News

4th Earthquake in 3 months hits Central Italy- 30th October 2016

A 6.6 magnitude tremor has injured 20 people. Aftershocks were continuing in this region early this morning.

Figure 1: Earthquakes in Italy August- October 2016

The Israeli emergency body dedicated to dealing with natural disasters have therefore started monitoring a tsunami warning issued for the Mediterranean Sea.

At least 22 killed in Egypt Floods- 30 October 2016

Due to torrential rains causing flooding in parts of Egypt, at least 22 people were killed and 72 injured.

3 Children Killed as flooding hits Indonesia's Gorontalo Province- 31st October 2016

Flash floods due to heavy rains in Indonesia. 3 children were swept away by strong current of a river and bodies were later found. Four other children who were also swept away have survived.

3 Typhoons expected to hit the Philippines in November- 31st October 2016

A maximum of 3 typhoons may enter the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR) in November. The PAGASA agency is currently monitoring a low pressure area (LPA) that was spotted 1,240 km east of Mindanao, outside PAR, which may intensify into a typhoon within 48 to 72 hours.

video 1: Typhoons in phillipines 

Source: http://news.abs-cbn.com/video/news/10/31/16/pagasa-expect-up-to-3-typhoons-in-november

In the space of 2 days many different regions of the world have been struck by extreme weather and natural disasters. 

Has climate change played a role in these? 

There is evidence to support that climate change is playing a role in rainfall related extreme events. However, I did not think that climate change could play a role in seismic activity. Further research has found that, UCL Earth Sciences professor Bill Mcguire, has written a book 'Walking the giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes', arguing that climate change has more of an impact on the Earths plate tectonic system than most modelling accounts for. He says:

"During this extraordinarily dynamic episode, as the immense ice sheets melted and colossal volumes of water were decanted back into the oceans, the pressures acting on the solid Earth also underwent massive change. In response, the crust bounced and bent, rocking our planet with a resurgence in volcanic activity, a proliferation of seismic shocks and burgeoning giant landslides."

Is our climate getting more extreme?

Our climate has rapidly changed since the 1950s, seeing more hot days and heatwaves

The clear message from the IPCC report: The Special Report On Managing Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advanced Climate change Adaptation (SREX) is that with climate change will come increasing record- breaking temperatures, heat waves, and heavy rainfall events.

Figure 1: Implications of climate change on extreme weather
Source:https://www.carbonbrief.org/what-the-ipcc-report-says-about-extreme-weather-events

Below are some important findings that I have found from the report, however I would definitely encourage you to take a read yourself:

Warm and Cold nights

• "It is very likely that there has been a decrease in the number of cold days and nights, and an overall increase in the number of warm days and nights."
• "Abnormally hot days and warm nights and heat waves are very likely to become more frequent."
• "Cold days and nights are very likely to become less frequent"

Precipitation

• "There has been statistically significant trends in the number of heavy precipitation events in some regions. It is likely that more of these regions have experienced increases than decreases."
• "It is likely that the frequency of heavy precipitation will increase in the 21st century."
• "Heavy precipitation is projected to increase in some (but not all) regions with projected decreases of total precipitation (medium confidence)."

Cyclones

• "There is low confidence in any observed long- term (i.e.. 40 years or more) increases in tropical cyclone activity. It is likely that there has been a poleward shift in the main Northern and Southern Hemisphere extratropical storm tracks. There is low confidence in observed trends in small spatial- scale phenomena such as tornadoes and hail."
• "While it is likely that overall global frequency will either decrease or remain essentially unchanged, it is more likely than not that the frequency of the most intense storms will increase substantially in some ocean basins."
• "There is medium confidence that an increased anthropogenic forcing will lead to a reduction in the number of mid-latitude cyclones over each hemisphere, and there is also medium confidence in a poleward shift of the tropospheric storm tracks due to future anthropogenic forcings."

Droughts

• "There is a medium confidence that some regions of the world have experienced more intense and longer droughts, in particular Europe and West Africa, but in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter"
• "There is medium confidence in a projected increase in duration and intensity of droughts in some regions of the world. Elsewhere there is overall low confidence because of insufficient agreement of projections of drought changes."

Floods

• "There is limited to medium evidence available to assess climate- driven observed changes in the magnitude and frequency of floods at regional scales. Furthermore, there is low confidence at the global scale regarding even the sign of these changes."
• "There is low confidence in projections of changes in fluvial floods."
• "There is medium confidence that projected increases in heavy rainfall would contribute to increases in rain- generated local flooding in some regions.

Below is a table taken from climate change 2013: The physical Science Basis

Figure 2: Projected impacts on extreme weather

Source: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/#.UlgAQ1CkoXc

Concluding thoughts 

The summary is very cautious with its findings and confidence levels, stating that " Extreme events are rare, which means there is limited data available to make assessments regarding changes in their frequency or intensity".  Generally, the report shows that some types of extreme weather will become more severe in the future, as the world gets warmer, although attributing any single extreme event to anthropogenic climate change is challenging. This type of overview is extremely important to planners, to prepare for an increase in extreme weather events, to try avoid a risk becoming a disaster.

While it is difficult to conclude that our climate is getting more extreme or not and whether this is due to anthropogenic warming to any degree of certainty. It is still possible to explore these varied changes in weather, and try to understand the possible causes behind these, which this blog will focus on in the coming weeks. 

Next week's blog will look at changes in precipitation and what this means in terms of climate change. 

Have a good and productive week.

Hurricane Matthew- Is this Climate change?

Hurricane Matthew- October 2016 

Figure 1: Definition of a hurricane

Source: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/hurricane.html

I am sure most of you reading this have read or seen in the news about Hurricane Matthew. The first I heard about Matthew was from my Nan, who rang from Jamaica, to tell us that a Category 5 hurricane was about to hit Jamaica. From the fear in her voice we knew it was more than just a bit of thunder, wind and rain that they were preparing themselves for. Luckily they escaped the worse of the impacts as it weakened, however it headed aggressively towards Haiti and the South- East coast (figure 2).

                                                                                  

Hurricane Matthew was a very powerful tropical cyclone, which set several records:

• The first Category 5 Atlantic Hurricane since Hurricane Felix in 2007. 
• The longest-lived category 4 (or higher) Atlantic hurricane in October
• The strongest storm to hit Haiti in 50 years, with the death toll being reported as over 1000.
• It joined the list of the top 10 deadliest hurricances
• And many more......

Figure 2: Path of Hurricane Matthew 

Source:http://www.nj.com/weather/index.ssf/2016/10/hurricane_matthew_questions_and_answers.html

Hurricanes and Climate Change

Hurricanes extract heat energy from the ocean and convert it to the power of the wind (figure 3), therefore the warmer the ocean, the stronger the hurricane will be, if all the other conditions it needs are met. Hurricanes generally occur over oceans when sea- surface temperatures (SSTs) exceed 26 ℃. Climate Change scientists are therefore confident that if we continue to heat up the oceans, we will see more Hurricanes like Matthew (Kossin, 2013).

Figure 3: The formation of hurricanes

Source:http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/hurricane/formation.html

Studies have shown that while the amount of Hurricanes may slightly dip in the future, the most destructive ones will actually increase (Kang, 2015). Holland (2013) found that the proportion of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has increased at a rate of ~25-30% per ℃ of global warming (figure 4). The message being put forward is that hurricanes that do occur in the future will be stronger and will intensify a lot quicker. But is this due to anthropogenic climate change?

Matthew remained a category 4-5 hurricane for 102 hours. This is the longest amount of time on record that a hurricane of this strength has persisted in the Atlantic Ocean during October. This is an indicator of climate change increasing powerful hurricanes, not only the frequency, but they are occurring in months that do not usually support tropical storms of this strength, due to warmer waters. Furthermore a prolonged length of the hurricane season has been observed- this has been increasing since 1995, which is one of the big signals of the impacts of climate change (Huffington post, 2016).

figure 4: Hurricane 1-2 category events decreasing and hurricane 4-5 events increasing - with temperature

Source: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-013-1713-0

What we do know for sure, is that Global warming is causing sea level rise which makes storm surges more destructive- meaning that Hurricanes such as Matthew are creating more damage, than they may have otherwise. Higher sea levels, give coastal storm surges a higher starting point when major storms approach the shore. The storm surge which is created therefore, reaches higher and penetrates further inland. This increases the risk of flooding and landslides.

What does the future hold?

As global temperatures increase, the frequency of intense category 4-5 hurricanes in the North Atlantic is projected to increase. However, the overall number of hurricanes globally is expected to either decline or remain unchanged (Bender, 2010).

Models by Emanuel (2013) suggest that under the RCP8.5 emissions pathway, the power dissipation will increase by 45% by 2100, with a 40% global increase in category 3-5 hurricanes. Bender (2010) produced very similar model projections, which projects that the frequency of category 4-5 storms increasing by 50% in the Atlantic by 2100. There are however disputes over whether the total frequency of tropical storms will increase in the future. Emanuel (2013) suggests that by the end of 2100 there will be substantial increases in tropical cyclones. However, in agreement with Bender (2010), Knutson (2010) concluded that the mean global frequency in tropical cyclones will decrease from 6- 34% by 2100.

There is however only limited evidence to suggest that these past and projected changes are due to anthropogenic warming.

Next week's blog will look at the main findings from the IPCC report on extreme events and climate change.

Introduction: Extreme Weather and Climate Change

Welcome!

Hi and welcome to my new blog 'Extreme Weather: The Deadly consequences of Climate change?'

This blog is part of my third 3rd year Geography module 'Global Environmental Change'. This is my second blog that I have started this academic term, the first one was for my other module 'Water and Development in Africa', in which I will post weekly about the complex relationship between water and environmental change in Africa. That blog has quite a few cross overs with this one, You should take a look. The first blog, provides an important overview, in how extreme rainfall will become more extreme due to increasing temperatures.

This will also be a weekly blog, where I will be exploring the complex relationship between Extreme Weather and climate Change. A vast array of topics will be covered using academic reports, news articles, books, and videos to explore this topic further. I chose extreme weather, because this is where my interests lie, as i want to get into disaster management of some sort, especially with climate change, projected to intensify these events. 

My interest for natural hazards stem from a 9-week holiday in Grenada visiting my grandparents in the summer of 2005. July 14th, hurricane Emily hit which was quite devastatingly early into the holiday. This has got to be probably one of the fondest memories I have with my grandparents.... I remember it so vividly, just seeing the power of nature, and everyone's life- their homes, their livelihoods, everything they owned- just rolling across the roads with the wind and rain. Watching the devastation around us from a window, it was very surreal.

Figure 1: Path of Hurricane Emily 2004, Eastern Caribbean, Grenada

Source: http://www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/forum/webbbs_config.pl?md=read;id=3010

This blog therefore is a great opportunity to explore my interests further, and share what I find you all.

Climate Change

The world is getting warmer- Over the past 30 years there has been a trend of increasingly higher average temperatures.

The purpose of the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer- reviewed and published scientific literature (Oreskes, 2004). In its Climate change 2014 report, the IPCC states that the scientific consensus is that Earth climate is warming due to human causes.

Figure 2: Observed Global Climate change and its causes taken from the IPCC 2014 summary for policy makers

Source: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf

Climate change has widespread implications. Changes in extreme weather and climate events have been observed since about 1950.  According to the IPCC some of these changes have been linked to anthropogenic influences.

Extreme weather and climate change

Extreme weather and climate events are events that:

• Don't happen frequently 
• Vary from the 'norm' in severity or duration
• Have severe impacts

With climate change scientists expect many changes in extreme weather events these include:

• Extreme weather events occurring more frequently than they did in the past
• Events becoming more intense, with the potential to create more damage
• Events lasting long than the 'norm'
• Events occurring at different times of the year ie. earlier or later in the season or year than they used to.

Figure 3: The strength of evidence for human induced climate change causing extreme events

Source: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/extreme-weather-climate-change.html#.WCjMq3d0dmB

Strong scientific evidence links climate change with heat waves and coastal flooding. Other forms of extreme weather have been closely linked with climate change, such as extreme precipitation events in some areas and severe droughts in others. There is however limited evidence and confidence from observed data that Tornadoes and Hurricanes are caused by climate change (figure 3). However this is an active area of research, where there is a strong scientific consensus that increasing temperatures will increase the severity, not necessarily the amount of these events.

Solomon et al, (2007) Bell curve

Figure 4: Solomon et al, (2007) Bell curve- increase in temperature means increase occurrence of extreme weather

Source: https://www.epa.gov/climate-change-science/understanding-link-between-climate-change-and-extreme-weather

Watch the Extreme Weather Bell Curve Animation

Weather variation can be described with a rough bell- shaped curve (figure 4). A small increase in average temperature leads to vast changes in weather: A changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial intent, duration and timing of extreme weather and climate events.

Will extreme weather become the new normal?

Typically, extreme weather is very rare, however with climate change, the odds of an extreme weather event taking place is increasingly higher, and likely to be even more extreme.

Even if we dramatically curb emissions, extreme weather will be apart of our future. Therefore, we must adapt to the likelihood that extreme weather events are becoming ever more commonplace. Smart planning and engineering solutions will need to be developed to cope with this obstacle, especially for the most vulnerable.

Next week's post will look at Hurricane Matthew and discuss the possibility if climate change played a role in the extremity of this event.