Flash floods in parts of Singapore after heavy afternoon downpour

Channel NewsAsia 3 Apr 08;

SINGAPORE: Several parts of Singapore saw flash floods after the heavy downpour on Thursday afternoon.

At Commonwealth Lane, the water went as high as the bumper of some cars. There was also flooding at Mount Pleasant Road. Several callers to Channel NewsAsia's hotline reported floods along Bukit Timah Road and Dunearn Road as well.

Some said those who sought shelter at bus stops were forced to stand on the seats to avoid the rising water.

A car also skidded along the Lornie Road flyover near MacRitchie Reservoir in the direction of Upper Thomson Road. No one was injured. - CNA/ac

Heavy rain ruins theatre show, causes flash floods
Straits Times 4 Apr 08;

THE opening night of a theatre production in Mohamed Sultan Road was a bit of a washout - after heavy rain soaked through the roof of the theatre, affecting power and lights.

The crew of TheatreWorks were gearing up for the opening night of its new production, Dance Dance Dance, at the converted warehouse until about 5.30pm.

Managing director Tay Tong said: 'The rain came through in huge torrents, like a waterfall.'

Across Singapore, there were reports of flash floods after heavy rainfall between 4.20pm and 6pm. About 107mm of rain was dumped yesterday - 60 per cent of the monthly average for April, said the Public Utilities Board.

Floods in places such as Dunearn Road near Swiss Club Road, Upper Paya Lebar Road near Bartley Road, and Commonwealth Avenue lasted about 20 minutes.

For TheatreWorks, the show will go on today, Mr Tay promised.

TEH JOO LIN

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Precautions against HFM Disease taken in Singapore kindergartens, nursery schools

Channel NewsAsia 3 Apr 08;

SINGAPORE: Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan on Thursday said he is worried about the different strains of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD). He is especially concerned about the EV71 strain.

"With EV71, children can die if it is not detected early. So I think we should take this seriously," he said.

But whichever HFMD strain it may be, Mr Khaw said his ministry is taking the situation seriously and is watching developments closely.

Kindergartens and nursery schools have been taking precautions, with teachers conducting regular checks on their students to see if they are showing symptoms of the disease.

As part of the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education, any pupil who shows symptoms will be isolated from others while waiting to be sent home.

HFMD is a common childhood disease spread through direct contact with body fluids or excretions such as saliva or faeces.

Young children, particularly those aged less than five years, are the most susceptible. - CNA/ac

Worry over HFMD strain
Straits Times 4 Apr 08;

THE higher number of people infected this year with a potentially lethal strain of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD) - known as Enterovirus 71 (EV 71) - is worrying Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan.

He said: 'When it is not EV 71, while it is a nuisance, it seldom causes death. But with EV 71, children can die if it is not detected early. So we should take this seriously.'

An outbreak of EV 71 in 2000 and 2001 killed more than 70 kids in Asia, including seven here.

So far this year, 4,423 people have contracted HFMD. The Health Ministry sounded the alarm last week when it noticed a 'higher' than usual number of patients coming down with the EV 71 strain, but did not go public with the figure.

Mr Khaw urged parents to be alert for the symptoms - fever, sore throat, and rashes or blisters on the hands and feet.

He also urged them to keep unwell children away from school.

'There is no vaccine, there is no cure, so the key strategy is still prevention,' said the minister, who spoke to reporters yesterday after watching a preview of a television documentary on renowned plague physician, Dr Wu Lien-Teh.

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Solar activity 'not behind climate change'

'No Sun link' to climate change
Richard Black, BBC News 3 Apr 08;

Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun's activity.

The research contradicts a favoured theory of climate "sceptics", that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature.

The idea is that variations in solar activity affect cosmic ray intensity.

But Lancaster University scientists found there has been no significant link between them in the last 20 years.

Presenting their findings in the Institute of Physics journal, Environmental Research Letters, the UK team explain that they used three different ways to search for a correlation, and found virtually none.



This is the latest piece of evidence which at the very least puts the cosmic ray theory, developed by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark at the Danish National Space Center (DNSC), under very heavy pressure.

Dr Svensmark's idea formed a centrepiece of the controversial documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Wrong path

"We started on this game because of Svensmark's work," said Terry Sloan from Lancaster University.

"If he is right, then we are going down the wrong path of taking all these expensive measures to cut carbon emissions; if he is right, we could carry on with carbon emissions as normal."

Cosmic rays are deflected away from Earth by our planet's magnetic field, and by the solar wind - streams of electrically charged particles coming from the Sun.

The Svensmark hypothesis is that when the solar wind is weak, more cosmic rays penetrate to Earth.

That creates more charged particles in the atmosphere, which in turn induces more clouds to form, cooling the climate.

The planet warms up when the Sun's output is strong.

Professor Sloan's team investigated the link by looking for periods in time and for places on the Earth which had documented weak or strong cosmic ray arrivals, and seeing if that affected the cloudiness observed in those locations or at those times.

"For example; sometimes the Sun 'burps' - it throws out a huge burst of charged particles," he explained to BBC News.

"So we looked to see whether cloud cover increased after one of these bursts of rays from the Sun; we saw nothing."

Over the course of one of the Sun's natural 11-year cycles, there was a weak correlation between cosmic ray intensity and cloud cover - but cosmic ray variability could at the very most explain only a quarter of the changes in cloudiness.

And for the following cycle, no correlation was found.

Limited effect

"This work is important as it provides an upper limit on the cosmic ray-cloud effect in global satellite cloud data," commented Dr Giles Harrison from Reading University, a leading researcher in the physics of clouds.



His own research, looking at the UK only, has also suggested that cosmic rays make only a very weak contribution to cloud formation.

The Svensmark hypothesis has also been attacked in recent months by Mike Lockwood from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory.

He showed that over the last 20 years, solar activity has been slowly declining, which should have led to a drop in global temperatures if the theory was correct.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its vast assessment of climate science last year, concluded that since temperatures began rising rapidly in the 1970s, the contribution of humankind's greenhouse gas emissions has outweighed that of solar variability by a factor of about 13 to one.

According to Terry Sloan, the message coming from his research is simple.

"We tried to corroborate Svensmark's hypothesis, but we could not; as far as we can see, he has no reason to challenge the IPCC - the IPCC has got it right.

"So we had better carry on trying to cut carbon emissions."

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Extreme weather starving Uganda's pastoralists

Alexis Okeowo, Yahoo News 3 Apr 08;

John Lochaon does not just survive on less than one dollar a day. He has streched out 15 dollars for nine months in a part of Uganda that climate change is plunging into famine.

Lochaon has been unable to make a living because he lives in Karamoja, one of the driest and least developed areas in this east African country and one with a lack of infrastructure and basic services.

Drought forces the one million-plus people in this northeastern region bordering Kenya and Sudan to constantly move around searching for food.

"I have two problems: old age and hunger," said the elderly Lochaon, who does not know his age. He sat on a log outside of his thatched-roof hut, his long, shrivelled limbs stretched over the dusty ground as lizards scurried by.

"Climate change is having a strong impact here - Karamoja is now in an emergency," said Alix Loriston, deputy director of the UN World Food Programme.

The semi-arid region has typically experienced drought since the 1960s, every five to 10 years.

But since 2000, the phenomenon has become more frequent and more disastrous. Karamoja, which has no irrigation system, has suffered extreme drought for two years straight, preventing harvests altogether.

Uganda's floods last autum left 400,000 homeless. Climate experts said they were also a consequence of global warming, and washed away what little crops existed.

In Karamoja's St. Kizito Hospital, emaciated babies swaddled in sheets filled rows of cribs. Their mothers, draped in brightly-patterned cloths, leaned over the silver bars of the beds.

The hospital said it treats over 350 children a day for severe malnutrition.

Harvesting is usually done once a year, during the wet season, said James Lemukol, a hospital doctor. "For the rest of the year, there is a dry spell of time."

Karamojong Ellen Moru said she was waiting for rain. Seated under the shade of a lifeless tree, Moru shared a small bowl of fruit for lunch with three other women and six children.

"It is two years since we had a harvest," she said. "If the rains come this year maybe we will have one; if not, this situation will worsen."

Moru, who has four children, said she had to hunt for wild fruits and vegetables. Behind her, tall, lanky Karamojong, bedecked in kaleidoscopic fabric and carrying walking sticks, roamed past scruffy bushes in the homestead.

Local leaders said the people rely on local alcohol, water, wild fruits and even ants and rats for sustenance.

"People live a day at a time," said Chuna Kapolon, a Karamojong politician.

To compound problems, as climate change dries the land, residents fight over ever-scarcer resources.

Cattle are the most prized possession of the Karamojong, prompting them to steal and even die in gunfights for the animals. With a lack of successful harvests, cattle are even more vital.

The Karamojong and their neighbours, the Turkana and Pokot of Kenya, also cattle-herders, have been engaged in conflict for centuries, often resulting in death and destroyed property.

The semi-nomadic tribes, once armed with bows and arrows, have now become equipped with illegal guns.

Uganda estimates that there are up to 40,000 weapons in Karamoja -- one for every 24 people. The army is forcibly disarming the nomads, which has resulted in several deaths on both sides.

For now, however, both cattle and food are lacking in Karamoja.

WFP said it will distribute enough food to meet the needs of 300,000 people, but that it lacks enough funds to feed the rest.

"The rains have been unpredictable and unreliable. You cultivate crops then they fail to germinate," said Anna Sagal, adjusting her neon-green headscarf as she stood in the dry heat waiting for a food handout.

Scientists on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned last September that the effects of global warming are already being felt in Africa.

Africans are expected to face a severe lack of food and drinkable water by the end of the century.

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Chinese pollution quietly takes toll in Japan

Kyoko Hasegawa, Yahoo News 2 Apr 08;

With a smile on her tanned face, skiier Kazumi Furukawa can vividly recall the time three years ago she stood here on Mount Zao and looked down at fir trees turned into glittering crystals.

"The sky was cobalt blue and I could see the tiny snow crystals on the tips of the tree branches," Furukawa, 56, remembers.

But these days the natural phenomenon is growing rarer and scientists say the culprit is beyond Japan's control -- industrial pollution from China.

Mount Zao is whipped every year by wet winds from across the Sea of Japan (East Sea) that form layers of ice and snow that shine like crystals. The Japanese call them "juhyo," or ice trees.

Skiiers from Japan and other Asian nations regularly fly to the 1,600-metre (5,280-foot) mountain just for a glimpse of the juhyo, which local people describe as little monsters for their intricate twisted shapes.

Fumitaka Yanagisawa, an assistant professor of Yamagata University who has studied the juhyo for nearly two decades, warns that the frost is increasingly mixed with acid, spelling danger for the trees' future.

This year he recorded the highest yet levels of acid, "which could have severe ramifications on the eco-system," he said.

Looking at satellite data, he and another professor, Junichi Kudo of Tohoku University, concluded that the acid in the trees came from sulfur produced at factories in China's Shanxi province.

Since he first wrote about his research in a scientific journal in 2006, elementary school teachers have asked him to give lectures to local children.

"It's hard to explain this kind of scientific evidence to children, but finally they seem to come up with the same question: 'What are you going to do about the problem?'" Yanagisawa said.

He regretted that he had no good answer.

"The pollution comes from outside Japan. There's a limit to what local residents here can do," he said.

Mount Zao is only one example of pollution hitting Japan from China, where factory emissions are causing international concern as its economy soars ahead.

Some schools in southern Japan and South Korea have occasionally curbed activities because of toxic chemical smog from China's factories or sand storms from the Gobi Desert caused by rampant deforestation.

Environmental ministers of China, Japan and South Korea agreed last year to look jointly at the problem, but Tokyo has accused Beijing of secrecy.

"About yellow sand, I am not quite sure how and why it can be regarded as a national secret," Japanese environment minister Ichiro Kamoshita said in February.

Yanagisawa remembers making a presentation on his academic findings at a Chinese university in the early 1990s.

"When I suggested the possibility that Japan was being hurt by cross-border pollution from China, the whole audience booed my speech," he said with a bitter smile.

"Even now, it's a sort of taboo to mention cross-border pollution when I'm invited to give a speech in China," he said.

Japanese officials say they are hoping to cooperate on the environment with Beijing, as Tokyo has been trying to repair ties after years of friction.

"It will have adverse effects if we push China too much on cross-border pollution," said Reiko Sodeno, an environmental ministry official who has observed past bilateral talks.

"Blaming other countries wouldn't help to solve the problem, as it only hurts national pride," she said.

She said the goal was for Asian nations to come up with a treaty on long-range transboundary air pollution similar to agreements in place among European and North American nations.

Japan also suffered terrible air and water pollution as it built itself into the world's second largest economy, but the situation has been improving since regulations were imposed in the 1970s.

China has taken steps to clean up its air to avoid international embarrassment at the Beijing Games in August after a warning from the International Olympic Committee.

"I have high hopes that in this year of the Olympics for China that Beijing will cooperate in international efforts towards cutting emissions of air pollutants," she said.

China is also taking part in talks aimed at coming up with a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. China is expected soon to top the United States as the top emitter of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.

But at current rates, emissions of nitrogen oxide -- a greenhouse gas that is the main cause of urban smog -- will increase 2.3 times in China and 1.4 times in East Asia by 2020, said Toshimasa Ohohara, head of air pollution monitoring research at the National Institute for Environmental Study.

"A lack of political leadership in East Asia would mean a worldwide worsening of air quality," he said.

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World grapples with aviation's climate change footprint

Charlie McDonald-Gibson, Yahoo News 3 Apr 08;

Air travel is booming as the world's population grows and fares fall, but its impact on Earth's sensitive climate must be taken into account in any new global warming pact, green groups say.

More than 900 delegates flew into Bangkok this week for a UN-led meeting on global warming, spewing about 4,181 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, an official from the United Nations climate body estimated.

Few would argue against holding such talks, which are vital to crafting a new pact on battling climate change, but activists are urging the world to include air and sea travel in any new accord.

"Aviation and maritime shipping are very big sources of emissions and they're growing fast," said David Doniger, climate policy chief at the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

"I think that one thing that's not acceptable is to leave those sectors uncontrolled on the theory that they don't belong to anybody," he added.

Industry and green groups estimate that air travel accounts for between two and four percent of the world's emissions of greenhouses gases such as carbon dioxide, which trap the sun's heat and cause temperatures to rise.

Emissions from the sector look set to rise, however, with the number of global travellers predicted to double by 2020.

International aviation and shipping were excluded from greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets laid out in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the current global treaty addressing climate change.

Delegates from more than 160 countries are now in Bangkok trying to thrash out a work plan for a new agreement on how to curb emissions when the Kyoto Protocol's deadlines run out in 2012.

"I think everybody agrees that we have to find some way of addressing emissions resulting from aviation and shipping," said Yvo de Boer, the UN's climate chief.

"The big question is how. Is that inside the convention process or is it outside the convention process?"

Bill Hare, climate policy director with Greenpeace, said that airline emissions were tricky given that many countries are involved in one flight -- the departure point, arrival point and the nationality of the operator.

He argues that aviation emissions should be included in binding greenhouse-gas cuts for rich nations expected to be laid out in the new pact, with the country selling the fuel taking responsibility for the emissions.

"If you want to be an aviation hub, then there is a carbon cost to it," he told AFP.

This would then spur industry into developing more energy-efficient engines and air craft, he said.

Under the Kyoto agreement, UN organisations the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) were tasked with coming up with a solution to the industry's climate footprint.

"The bottom line is they haven't done anything," Hare said.

Some nations are pushing to leave the issue with the UN bodies, while the European Union has talked about a sector-based approach where airlines must cap their emissions, or buy "carbon credits" from other industries.

The industry was overwhelmingly against the EU idea, said Tom Ballantyne, an analyst with Orient Aviation magazine, but was not necessarily opposed to being included in any post-Kyoto agreement.

"They realise that they are going to have to confront this," he said, adding the aviation industry had yet to decide on a united stance on climate change.

British tycoon Richard Branson, president of the Virgin Atlantic airline, recently flew from London to Amsterdam on a Boeing 747 partially fueled by coconut and a variety of palm oil.

He later extolled the energy potential of algae, press reports said, and has pledged millions of dollars in research into new technologies.

Many green activists are, however, lukewarm on the idea of expanded use of biofuels to curb transport emissions, saying that it could also cause new problems including pressure on food prices.

"There is no golden solution to the replacement of fossil fuels. It's impossible to replace one thing by a single other source," said Marcelo Furtado of Greenpeace Brazil.

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Boeing makes first ever hydrogen battery flight

Yahoo News 3 Apr 08;

US aircraft maker Boeing flew a plane that was powered by a hydrogen battery at the start of 2008 for the first time in aviation history, senior company officials said in Spain on Thursday.

"For the first time in the history of aviation, Boeing has flown a manned airplane that was powered by a hydrogen battery," Boeing chief technology officer John Tracy told a news conference at the firm's research centre in the central Spanish town of Ocana.

The plane, which used propellers, flew at a speed of 100 kilometres (62 miles) an hour for about 20 minutes at an altitude of about 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) using only the hydrogen battery for power, Boeing said in a statement.

The director of the Ocana research centre, Francisco Escarti, said the hydrogen battery "could be the main source of energy for a small plane" but would likely not become the "primary soruce of energy for big passenger planes".

"The company will continue to explore their potential as well as that of all durable sources of energy that boost environmental performance," he said.

Tracy said the development was "a historical technological success for Boeing" and was "full of promises for a greener future".

"Boeing recognizes that pollution represents a serious environmental challenge," he added.

Amid rising fuel costs and mounting concerns over climate change, airlines are keen to find ways to cut their energy bills and the pollution which they emit.

Boeing's first new model in over a decade, the Dreamliner, used high-tech composites which reduces its weight and which the company says will make it consume 20 percent less fuel then similar-sized planes already on the market.

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Climate negotiators work on ambitious pact

Shaun Tandon Yahoo News 2 Apr 08;

Negotiators here are working on the world's most ambitious pact yet against global warming, but questions are growing about how to force governments to live up to the promises they make.

Week-long talks in Bangkok are aimed at laying the groundwork for global action after the Kyoto Protocol's commitments run out in 2012 for rich nations to slash greenhouse gas emissions blamed for heating up the planet.

The United States is the main holdout from the Kyoto Protocol, arguing it is too costly. But Kyoto signatories such as Canada, Japan and some southern European countries are all well off-track in their goals.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made clear after taking office two years ago that his government would follow its own climate goals, not those of the Kyoto Protocol.

"The biggest concern comes from countries like Canada that have openly begun voicing doubts about whether they will comply or even care about complying," said Antonio Hill, senior policy adviser at British aid group Oxfam.

"We need to make darn sure that all countries comply," he said.

Kyoto calls for an average of five percent emission reductions by 2012 from 1990 levels, a sliver of cuts of up to 40 percent by 2020 proposed by the European Union in ongoing talks.

Canada has joined the United States in insisting on mandatory emissions cuts for fast-growing emerging economies such as China and India.

"The Canadian government is out here pointing the finger at other countries at a time when we've said we're not even going to bother reaching our targets," said Dale Marshall, climate change analyst at the David Suzuki Foundation, a Canadian environmental group.

"It's not just that Canada has very little credibility, but it undermines the whole process," he said.

Kyoto required Canada to slash emissions by six percent by 2012 under Kyoto, but as of 2006 its gas output had soared by 35 percent from 1990 levels.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, a nation that fails to meet its obligations can be penalised with tougher requirements under a future deal.

With few people noticing, the UN body that supervises the Kyoto Protocol last month ruled for the first time that a country had violated the treaty.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) found that Greece was not properly monitoring emissions, official documents showed. The UNFCCC will study possible punishment later.

Kyoto violators can only be restricted from the growing market in trading carbon emissions credits.

But Kyoto's supporters hope the biggest incentive of all comes from the growing awareness about global warming. On Saturday, tens of millions of people switched off their lightbulbs in the latest worldwide green campaign.

"I personally think that maybe the moral sanction is much more significant than the legal sanction," said Yvo de Boer, head of the UNFCCC.

"I think that no self-respecting government would want to see a newspaper headline that it has failed to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol," he said.

That moral pressure appeared to work in the case of Japan, which has recently shifted stance and started to consider mandatory caps on emissions by industry.

Japan, which hopes to show leadership on climate change when it hosts the Group of Eight summit of major economies in July, was stung by green groups' criticism at a UN climate conference in December in Bali, Indonesia.

"It went all the way to the level of the prime minister, who was very concerned about the criticism that Japan was getting," said Alden Meyer, strategy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a US pressure group.

He noted that climate change was a factor in the defeat last year of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a leading opponent of Kyoto.

"Nobody wants to be a climate scofflaw and pariah on this issue, which is moving up the radar screen as a geopolitical issue of first magnitude," Meyer said.

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Best of our wild blogs: 3 Apr 08

Red dot goes black?
about the possibility of a Tuas coal-fired power plant on AsiaIsGreen blog

Mystery oil slick along East Coast Park beach
and Sentosa too, on the wildfilms blog

Making Love: Right Time or Wrong Time
a Crab Spider Story on Tiomanese's Blog

Malayan Whistling Thrush: Feeding the fledglings
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Take short sharp showers
monthly tip on sharp songs to sing to avoid wrinkly skin and save water on the do the green thing newsletter, go to the do the green thing website to record that you've done it.

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Malaysia scraps coal plant plans on environment worries

Reuters 2 Apr 08;

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia has scrapped plans to build a 1.3 billion ringgit ($408 million) coal-fired power plant in eastern Sabah state on Borneo island due to worries it would pollute the environment, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The 300MW-plant was to have been built near a tropical forest by a subsidiary of state-controlled utility Tenaga Nasional and a Sabah state government agency, The Star reported on its Web site.

"After weighing the pros and cons, the cabinet decided to do away with the proposal because we do not want to risk the welfare of the communities in the area including their health and any adverse impact on the environment," Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman was quoted as saying.

He asked Tenaga to look for other sources of energy for Sabah.

Tenaga spokesman Sidek Kamiso said the company had not been officially notified of the government's decision.

($1=3.187 Malaysian Ringgit)

(Reporting by Liau Y-Sing, editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Malaysia scraps controversial coal power plant on Borneo island
Yahoo News 2 Apr 08;

Malaysia on Wednesday said it will scrap a 1.3 billion ringgit (408 million dollars) coal power plant in an environmentally sensitive area in eastern Sabah state on Borneo island.

"After careful consideration, we just cannot take the risk and destroy an environment that is intact. We need to look for more environmentally friendly sources of energy," Chief Minister Musa Aman said.

In 2006, state power company Tenaga Nasional's chairman Leo Moggie insisted the 300 Megawatt plant would have minimal impact on the environment.

But local environmentalists feared the coal plant would damage the environment, including the pristine Danum Valley forest.

"After weighing the pros and cons, the cabinet decided to do away with this proposal because we do not want to risk the welfare of the communities in the area including their health," he added.

Musa also said the decision to cancel the power plant was based on the fact that the proposed site was close to vital ecotourism sites.

"The proposed site is in proximity to conservation area like Darvel Bay, Malian Basin, Danum Valley and Ulu Segama, which are areas with highly sensitive ecosystems," he added.

"We cannot allow for such a plant to be built because these conservation areas have been designated as ecotourism sites."

Musa said Tenaga and the local Sabah Electricity had been ordered to look for alternative sources of energy and sites.

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Mystery oil slick along East Coast Park beach

Channel NewsAsia 2 Apr 08;

SINGAPORE : The National Environment Agency (NEA) said on Wednesday that its contractor is in the midst of cleaning up the East Coast Park beach following the discovery of oil patches in the area.

It said the cleaning operation is expected to continue on Thursday.

A member of the public alerted Channel NewsAsia to the discovery.

Patches of oil were first seen in the seas off East Coast on Wednesday, and some of the oil later reached the East Coast Park beach.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) is trying to identify the source of the oil spill.

Port authorities said there was no report of oil pollution in port waters.

But marine officials said there were patches of oil off Sentosa Cove, seen at 7am. An anti-pollution craft was sent and a clean-up operation was completed by 2pm.

The MPA said port operations and vessel traffic remained unaffected.

The NEA said the affected beach begins from the Road Safety Park to the point just before the East Coast Lagoon.

As a precautionary measure, beach-goers are advised to avoid swimming in the water and using the beach along the affected stretch until further notice.

Both the MPA and NEA are investigating. - CNA/de

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Coolest March in Singapore in nearly two decades... but weather still getting hotter

Tania Tan, Straits Times 3 Apr 08;

THE weather last month may have called for sweaters, but make no mistake about it: Singapore is still sweltering in the heat of global warming, say experts.
Average temperatures dipped to a cool 26.5 deg C last month, making it the coldest March since 1990.

At its chilliest, the mercury dropped to 21.8 deg C due to the 'wetter than average' weather, said the National Environment Agency (NEA).

But despite the dip, a close tracking of temperatures over the last few years shows that the weather is getting hotter.

'I worry that people may forget the bigger picture,' said Associate Professor Matthias Roth of the National University of Singapore's department of geography.

'Even though we may have had a cool bout, it's important to realise that climate change is still happening.'

Since the 1970s, Singapore's average annual temperature has creptup from about 26 deg C to 28 deg C.

'This is in line with a global trend,' said the NEA.

Last month's lower temperatures were driven by freakishly wet weather. The rain was due to a pronounced La Nina effect, possibly the strongest since the 1970s, said Prof Roth.

Caused by a swirl of cooling air over the Pacific Ocean, the phenomenon usually results in cooler, wetter weather.

More than double the average amount of rainfall - up to 570mm - was dumped on some parts of the island in the first two weeks of last month, said the NEA's Meteorological Services Division.

Brief spells of heavy rain are expected to continue for the next two weeks as light and variable winds carry moist air in from the Pacific, said the NEA.

Asked whether climate change could be aggravating the La Nina effect, Prof Roth said scientists have yet to answer that question.

'It's still being debated,' he said.

But what is certain is that the planet is getting hotter.

In 2005, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that the earth's surface temperature was likely to rise between 1 and 6 deg C by the end of this century due to greenhouse gases, which trap heat.

To help combat climate change, some countries, including Singapore, have tried to cut carbon emissions through recycling, increasing energy efficiency and reducing waste.

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