Climate change can cause both flooding and drought

Climate change can cause both flooding and droughts. How is that possible? Learn more: bit.ly/2kY6xh6

Weather in Singapore driest since 1869

The prolonged dry weather affecting Singapore since mid-January has set a new record for the driest month since 1869, according to the National Environment Agency (NEA).

At the Changi climate station, the rainfall total recorded last month was 0.2mm, breaking the previous record of 6.3mm in February 2010.

Apart from being the driest month ever, last month is the most windy month in the last 30 years.

At the Changi climate station, the average daily wind speed of 13.3 kilometre per hour (kph) recorded last month exceeds the previous high of 12.5kph in January 1985.

The prolonged dry conditions have also set a new record for the lowest average daily relative humidity of 74.5%.

The previous record low for February and any month of the year was 76.9% (February 1968) and 74.6% (June 2013).

The last day of significant rainfall was on February 16 when between 0.2mm and 29m was recorded in various parts of the island.

Since then, there has been little or no rainfall, with Singapore entering another period of dry spell on February 17.

The dry weather affecting Singapore and the surrounding region is expected to persist in the first half of this month.

With the expected onset of the inter-monsoon in the second half of this month, the winds in the region will turn light and variable in direction.

Increased rainfall can be expected in the later part of the month.

With the dry weather expected to continue, the National Water Agency has started a public campaign to get everyone to conserve water. – Bernama, March 4, 2014. More

 

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Bermuda's Water Harvesting / Catchment

As countries around the world scramble to address the looming water crisis, Bermuda's unique roofs may have the answer to rainwater harvesting.

Atmospheric Warming Altering Ocean Salinity And The Water Cycle

A clear change in salinity has been detected in the world’s oceans, signaling shifts and acceleration in the global rainfall and evaporation cycle tied directly to climate change.

In a paper published … in the journal Science, Australian scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported changing patterns of salinity in the global ocean during the past 50 years, marking a clear symptom of climate change.

Lead author Paul Durack said that by looking at observed ocean salinity changes and the relationship between salinity, rainfall and evaporation in climate models, they determined the water cycle has become 4 percent stronger from 1950-2000. This is twice the response projected by current generation global climate models.

“These changes suggest that arid regions have become drier and high rainfall regions have become wetter in response to observed global warming,” said Durack, a post-doctoral fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Scientists monitor salinity changes in the world’s oceans to determine where rainfall has increased or decreased. “It provides us with a gauge — a method of monitoring how large-scale patterns of rainfall and evaporation (the climate variables we care most about) are changing,” Durack said.

With a projected temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, the researchers estimate a 24 percent acceleration of the water cycle is possible.

[JR: Actually the projected warming by century's end is closer to 5°C -- see review of literature here -- which would yield a stunning 40% acceleration of the water cycle.]

Scientists have struggled to determine coherent estimates of water cycle changes from land-based data because surface observations of rainfall and evaporation are sparse. According to the team, global oceans provide a much clearer picture.

“The ocean matters to climate — it stores 97 percent of the world’s water; receives 80 percent of all surface rainfall, and it has absorbed 90 percent of the Earth’s energy increase associated with past atmospheric warming,” said co-author, Richard Matear of CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans Flagship.

“Warming of the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere is expected to strengthen the water cycle largely driven by the ability of warmer air to hold and redistribute more moisture.”

He said the intensification is an enhancement in the patterns of exchange between evaporation and rainfall, and with oceans accounting for 71 percent of the global surface area, the change is clearly represented in ocean surface salinity patterns.

In the study, the scientists combined 50-year observed global surface salinity changes with changes from global climate models and found “robust evidence of an intensified global water cycle at a rate of about 8 percent per degree of surface warming,” Durack said.

Durack said the patterns are not uniform, with regional variations agreeing with the ‘rich get richer’ mechanism, where wet regions get wetter and dry regions drier.

He said a change in freshwater availability in response to climate change poses a more significant risk to human societies and ecosystems than warming alone.

“Changes to the global water cycle and the corresponding redistribution of rainfall will affect food availability, stability, access and utilization,” Durack said.

Susan Wijffels, co-chair of the global Argo project and a co-author on the study, said maintenance of the present fleet of around 3,500 profilers is critical to observing continuing changes to salinity in the upper oceans. More

This piece of research was originally published at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

 

IOC Assesses Climate Vulnerability of South-West Indian Ocean Islands

13 April 2012: The Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) project on climate change adaptation, titled "Acclimate," has released five assessments of climate change vulnerability in the South-West Indian Ocean islands of the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion (France) and the Seychelles.

For each case, the reports provide qualitative assessments of climate vulnerability across various sectors including: integrated water management; fisheries; risk and disaster management; energy; food security; and security and sovereignty.

According to the assessment reports, these countries face shared challenges due to climate change, such as water scarcity, extreme weather events, sea level rise and coastal erosion, and coral bleaching. The common methodological framework across all five assessments has allowed production of a regional strategy for climate change adaptation, which will be submitted for political acceptance by the concerned countries at the end of 2012.

Acclimate, which started in 2008, was commenced to strengthen the capacity of South-West Indian Ocean island States to adapt to climate change. The assessments aim to share knowledge and contribute to mainstreaming climate issues into national and regional policy processes. [Acclimate Website (in French)] [Comoros Assessment Report] [Madagascar Assessment Report] [Mauritius Assessment Report] [La Réunion (France) Assessment Report] [Seychelles Assessment Report] [Synthesis and Roadmap to a Regional Strategy for Climate Change Adaptation] [Indian Ocean Commission Website] More



 

Spurring Climate Change Adaptation in Seychelles Schools through Rainwater Harvesting

The republic of Seychelles is vulnerable to particular climate change effects and challenges which include sea level rise, increase in sea surface temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns with short periods of heavy rainfall during the rainy season and severe droughts during the dry season being a common occurrence. These effects have adverse impacts on the health and functioning of ecosystems and consequently on the wellbeing of humans as they affect the social and economic systems that are central to human existence.

This problem of water scarcity is further compounded by the ever increasing demand for water occasioned by increased economic and social development as well as population growth. To address this, the country invested heavily in the construction of reservoirs and desalination plants, but this didn’t help but instead skyrocketed the use of fossil fuel which only helped to emit more GhGs. Increased school population and the local educational campaign to green school grounds, resulted in increased demand for water resulting in high water bills.

In an effort to address this and at the same time demonstrate adaptation to climate change in Schools, the UNEP/UNDP CC-DARE project with financial support from the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), assisted Seychelles with a timely-targeted rainwater harvesting project.

The objectives were to harvest rain water from school roofs so as to meet the needs of selected schools and to reduce the cost of water bills, educate school children on the impact of climate change on our water resources and on the methods used to adapt to climate change, raise awareness among the general public on climate change impacts on the Seychelles and on rainwater harvesting as a means of adapting to water problems caused by climate change and finally share the water harvesting experiences of the schools with other organizations.

The Environmental Education Unit in collaboration with the Environment Department, the Water Division in Public Utility cooperation, and the Sustainability for Seychelles (S4S), Seychelles Islands Foundation (SIF) and Sea Level Rise Foundation all NGO partners implemented the project helping build the capacities of citizens in the country and the CC-DARE provided the requisite technical backstopping that ensured the projects implementation progressed as per the plan and the project objectives were achieved. The project soon moved from schools to communities. More

 

Many Strong Voices Launches New And Updated Web Site

Many Strong Voices (MSV) has just launched its new web site, which has been revised and updated. There are sections with downloadable materials -- publications, posters, postcards, etc. -- which you should feel free to use. We will shortly about linking to other projects and material as well. Click Here