Malaysia: Wild weather patterns will lead to health risks and other woes

The Star 8 Feb 11;

PETALING JAYA: Malaysians who are already experiencing bad floods in parts of the country have to further brace themselves for extreme weather conditions in coming years. With the worsening weather conditions, health risks will also escalate.

The Meteorological Department says communicable diseases such as malaria, dengue and others are highly climate-sensitive and will worsen with changing global weather patterns.

Other developments include:

*Climate variability associated with the El Nino and La Nina phenomena has increased the average temperatures of the country by between 0.5 °C and 1.5 °C;

*The region will face rising sea levels, droughts, landslides and forest fires;

*Clean air, safe drinking water and secure shelter will be adversely affected;

*Crop yields will be reduced while weeds and pests will proliferate; and

*Reports say that the changing environment in South-East Asia is responsible for up to a quarter of all deaths in the region.

Winds of change look bad
Ng Cheng Yee The Star 8 Feb 11;

PETALING JAYA: First, it was the floods. Now, Malaysians will have to watch out for killer diseases.

Infections and diseases are expected to worsen with the extreme weather conditions likely to be experienced by the country in the next few years.

Sounding out the health risks caused by the extreme weather, the Meteorological Department research and development senior director Dr Wan Azli Wan Hassan said diseases like diarrhoea, malaria and dengue were highly climate-sensitive and would worsen with the changing global weather patterns.

He said the overall health effects of a changing climate in the next decade would have negative impact.

“Climate change affects the fundamental requirements for healthy living such as clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter,” he said in an interview.

Dr Wan Azli said that due to climate variability associated with El Nino and La Nina phenomena in the last decade, the average temperature increased by 0.5˚C to 1.5˚C in the peninsula and 0.5˚C to 1˚C in Sabah and Sarawak.

He said that over the past 10 years, there had also been an increase in rainfall for most parts of the country except for southern Pahang where a decrease was recorded.

Last year, the average mean daily temperature of Malaysia was 26.7˚C while the average rainfall was 2,121mm in the peninsula and 3,208mm in Sabah and Sarawak, he said, adding that Malaysia was vulnerable to inconsistent weather patterns.

Recently, medical papers published by The Lancet journal stated that South-East Asia was a “hotspot” for emerging and difficult-to-control infectious diseases. The outbreak of avian flu is also fuelling fears about the possibility of new pandemic spreading from the region.

The reports said the changing environment in South-East Asia – a disaster-prone area which is frequently hit by monsoons and typhoons – was responsible for up to a quarter of all deaths in the region.

Climate change could exacerbate the spread of emerging infectious diseases in the region, especially vector-borne diseases linked to rising temperatures and rainfall such as dengue, the report added.

Dr Wan Azli said the changing climate combined with global population and income growth also threatened food security everywhere.

“Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Higher temperatures will eventually reduce yields of desirable crops while encouraging weed and pest proliferation.

“The developing world, which is already vulnerable and food insecure, is likely to be the most seriously affected,” he said.

Dr Wan Azli warned that Malaysia and other South-East Asian countries would also be prone to weather-related natural hazards such as severe thunderstorms, rough seas, severe haze, floods, rising sea-level, landslides, droughts and forest fires in the next decade.

Of these, severe storms, haze and floods are the phenomena most clearly depicting the impact of climate change in Malaysia, he said.

Talking about the weather
The Star 8 Feb 11;

HOW’S the weather? It is a question we all ask. The Star reporter NG CHENG YEE had some hot and cold answers from the Meteorological Department's Research and Development senior director Dr Wan Azli Wan Hassan. Q: How has the weather pattern changed in the region and in Malaysia over the last decade?

A: Inter-annual variability associated with El Nino/La Nina-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) dominated the weather pattern in the region. El Nino and La Nina respectively bring drier and wetter conditions to Southeast Asia. A minor La Nina occurred in 2000 and 2001. Then, an occurrence of El Nino started in September 2006 and lasted till early 2007.

The 2007–2008 La Nina was the strongest since 1989. El Nino conditions were in place starting from June 2009, peaking in February last year.

Last year, large parts of Indonesia experienced heavy rains as La Nina developed, with unusual rains from May (normally the driest time of the year).

We also had monsoonal rainfall changes in Southeast Asia in the past decade but lack of data compromised evidence for trends. In October last year, under the influence of a weak La Nina, the super-typhoon Megi crossed the northern Philippines after reaching a minimum central pressure of 885 hPa, making it the strongest tropical cyclone in the world since 2005 and the strongest in the Northwest Pacific since 1984. Megi caused widespread damage to infrastructure and agriculture in the northern Philippines, Taiwan and the Fujian province in China.

In the last decade, an average temperature increase of 0.5°C to 1.5°C was recorded in the peninsular and 0.5°C to 1.0°C in Sabah and Sarawak.

The western coast of the peninsular experiences larger rise in temperature when compared to other regions in Malaysia.

In terms of rainfall, over the past 10 years, there has been an increase in rainfall for most parts of the peninsular as well as in Sabah and Sarawak, except southern Pahang, where there was a decrease in rainfall. The regions with significant increase in rainfall are the western and north-eastern regions of the peninsular, central Sarawak and Sabah.

In recent years, increase in weather extremes has been observed in Malaysia.

This increase could be associated with the natural variability in the sea surface temperatures of the equatorial Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. For example, the northeast monsoons of 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 brought torrential rain and floods to Malaysia. The rainfall during the northeast monsoon of 2006/2007 was the worst-ever recorded in southern peninsular, especially in Johor. Other extreme events, such as severe thunderstorms, dry periods and haze, have become more prevalent in recent years. Due to the complex interaction of the atmosphere, ocean and biosphere, the global warming definitely has contributed to these changes.

Q:How much did the weather change last year, compared to the beginning of the last decade? In terms of occurring during the "normal months", has the pattern changed?

A:The following are based on a month-to-month or season-to-season comparison of accumulated monthly rainfall between 2001 and last year at 35 principal meteorological stations throughout Malaysia. i) For northeast monsoon, from October to December last year, there seemed to be a see-saw wetter and drier conditions occurring from month to month. The entire country experienced wetter conditions during November in between the drier conditions in October and December. The wetter north-western region of Peninsular Malaysia in December was an exception.

ii) Generally, drier conditions were experienced throughout the peninsular from January to March last year, except in the north-western region during February and the interior areas of the central region in February and March.

iii) Sabah experienced drier conditions from January to March last year. Similarly, Sarawak experienced drier conditions in January and February, except western Sarawak where wetter conditions were experienced in January.

iv) Not much difference in rainfall amounts throughout the country from April to May last year, except slightly drier conditions in the north-western and central regions during April, and slightly wetter conditions in the central region in May.

v) Not much difference in rainfall amounts in Sabah and Sarawak during April last year, but took a turn to wetter conditions during May.

vi) Conditions were significantly wetter throughout the country from June to July last year, meaning that the southwest monsoon season in 2010 was much wetter compared to 2001.

vii) While Sabah and Sarawak, as well as central peninsular, continued to experience wetter conditions in August, northern peninsular faced drier conditions.

viii) Not much difference in rainfall amounts throughout the country during September except wetter conditions in Sabah and slightly drier conditions in north-eastern peninsular.

Q: What is the temperature difference when comparing last year and 2001? What is the highest and lowest for last year and the highest and lowest for 2001?

A: i) North-western Peninsular Malaysia became warmest in the country with an average increased in annual mean temperature of 0.6°C.

ii) Central and southern Peninsular Malaysia were the second warmest areas with an average increase in annual mean temperature of 0.35 – 0.45°C.

iii) Sabah and north-eastern Peninsular Malaysia were warmer by an average increase in annual mean temperature of 0.25°C.

iv) The annual mean temperature in Sarawak remained unchanged.

v) The highest maximum temperatures were 37.4°C recorded at Temerloh, Pahang in 2001 and 38.2°C recorded at Chuping, Terengganu last year.

vi) Excluding Cameron Highlands, the lowest minimum temperatures were 19.5°C recorded at Kuala Krai, Kelantan in 2001 and 20.0°C recorded at Kota Baru and Batu Embun, Pahang last year.

Q: In Malaysia, where are the drastic changes occurring? Which part of Malaysia and why?

A: The rainfall during the northeast monsoon of 2006/2007 was the worst ever recorded over southern peninsular, especially in Johor, which caused floods of 100-year return period. Even though Malaysia was experiencing warmer conditions and had more rain during the northeast monsoon of 2006/2007 and the southwest monsoon last year, there seems to be no overall drastic change in weather occurring in the country.

The extra rainfall received could be explained by natural climate variability and not necessarily due to global warming, even though climate variability and climate change due to global warming are somehow interconnected. Natural climate variability and global warming all contribute to climate change. Climate variability denotes the short-term changes in climate while climate change due to global warming is considered as the long-term change in the Earth’s climate. Therefore, we may conclude the observed changes occurred over the past few years were due to natural climate variability and global warming acting in the same direction.

Q: Is the same pattern of change going to continue?

A: It is projected that the average global surface temperature will continue to increase in the future. The Malaysian Meteorological Department has analysed data obtained from the inter-governmental panel on climate change to look at the projected warming for Malaysia.

The findings are as follows:

i) The temperature changes at the end of this century (2099), relative to the baseline (1961-1990), as projected by the nine atmospheric-ocen general circulation global models (AOGCMs) are in the ranges of about 1.1 - 3.6oC for Peninsular Malaysia and about 1.0 – 3.5oC for both Sabah and Sarawak;

ii) Towards the end of the century, certain areas in the region would experience higher temperature increase. Indochina is projected for the highest temperature increase, followed by Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia;

iii) The temperature projections clearly indicate highest temperature increase over land compared to the sea areas. Overall for the region, the range of temperature increase at the end of the century is between 1.0ºC to 4ºC.

iv) Under the warming climates, rainfall patterns will generally change globally with highly variable trends occurring over the tropical region, including over Malaysia. Some areas would receive in excess of rainfall and some areas would be in deficit of rainfall, therefore, affecting water resources availability.

v) Time series showing projections of rainfall from the nine AOGCMs are differed among the model, and there are no clear trends of overall rainfall for Malaysia for the 21st century.

vi) In general, there will be no particular or clear mean annual rainfall trend due to the warming climate scenario over the Southeast Asia region. However, more extreme rainfall events can be expected over some areas in this region due to the warming climate.

Q: Will it have any impact on the environment, food and crops, the health of people and animals?

A: Weather-related natural hazards associated with climate change include severe thunderstorms, rough seas, severe haze, floods, sea-level rise, landslides, droughts and forest fires. Of these, severe storms, haze and floods are natural phenomena most clearly depicting the impact of climate change in Malaysia.

Extremely wet condition can lead to severe floods, landslides as well as loss of lives and properties while extremely dry condition will result in droughts, forest fires and crop failures which lead to socio-economic disorders. The accelerating pace of climate change, combined with global population and income growth, threatens food security everywhere. Higher temperatures eventually reduce yields of desirable crops while encouraging weed and pest proliferation. Changes in precipitation patterns increase the likelihood of short-run crop failures and long-run production declines. Although there will be gains in some crops in some regions of the world, the overall impacts of climate change on agriculture are expected to be negative, threatening global food security.

The overall health effects of a changing climate are likely to be overwhelmingly negative. Climate change affects the fundamental requirements for health such as clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter. Many of the major killers such as diarrhoea, malnutrition, malaria and dengue are highly climate-sensitive and are expected to worsen as the climate changes.

Q: Can you give specific reasons for this drastic changes, except for global warming, La Nina and El Nino?

A: We have observed climate variability and climate change due to global warming acting in the same direction over the past few years. Therefore, climate variability goes hand in hand with climate change. Extremely hot or wet weather can be a consequent of natural weather variability and not necessarily due to anthropogenic climate change which caused global warming.

However, when a pattern of extreme weather persists for some time, it may be classed as an extreme climate event related to global warming. The Earth’s climate is dynamic and naturally varies on seasonal, annual, decadal, centennial, and longer timescales. Each "up and down" fluctuation can lead to conditions which are warmer or colder, wetter or drier, stormier or calmer.

When knowing the weather means money and life
The Star 8 Feb 11;

PETALING JAYA: For most Malaysians, the weather may just mean rain or shine. They seldom check with the Meteorological Department unlike people living in countries prone to natural disasters.

But there are people for whom the department’s forecast could be the difference between losses and profits, or even life and death.

For those involved in commodity trading and pasar malam traders, the weather holds the key to how much they can earn a day.

The department’s National Wea-ther Forecast Centre director Saw Bun Liong said they often received phone enquiries from these people.

“For pasar malam (night market) traders, it is important to know about the weather as it will help them to decide whether or not to set up stall for the day.

“Many companies involved in commodities trading also need to know the changes in the weather condition to help them predict commodity prices,” he said.

The weather forecast is even more important for oil companies and fishermen.

At oil rig locations, at least two senior officers from the department monitor the weather conditions.

“If the waves are too high, we will issue a warning so oil companies can pull their workers out from the locations.

“We also provide forecast to the Fisheries Department which will in turn issue warnings to fishermen if the sea is too rough,” he said.

To regularly keep the people in-formed of the weather, his department will start updating data on the social network Facebook next week. “We will also give real-time answers to those who make enquiries through the social media.”

He said the department would also continue to play its role in predicting the weather for major tournaments like the Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix and Monsoon Cup.

“We will send two buses equipped with a satellite system to monitor the weather during the Langkawi Inter-national Maritime and Aero-space Exhibition, he said.

Thunderstorms expected in Johor until Thursday
New Straits Times 8 Feb 11;

KUALA LUMPUR: The Meteorological Department has forecast that several areas in Johor will experience severe thunderstorms until Thursday.

Central forecast office principal assistant director Amir Zudi said yesterday the country’s climate was entering a changing period.
“At the end of the monsoon season, thunderstorms are common because of the unstable atmosphere.

“The North-East monsoon wind is exiting Malaysia, and the South-West monsoon will begin in May.”

He said the inter-monsoon period stood in-between the two distinctive seasons, where thunderstorms were a common occurrence in Malaysia during that time.

“The southwest monsoon will last from May until September, where there will still be rain, but in much lesser volume compared with its north-east counterpart.”