Climate change perils: Small Philippine islands may soon disappear into sea

Source: GMA News Online at  http://ph.news.yahoo.com/climate-change-perils-small-phl-islands-may-soon-105728266.html

 

Unless Filipinos pay attention to climate change and the signs of its impending crux, some of the small islands in the Philippines may vanish from the map altogether in the forthcoming years. 

Super typhoons, constant flooding, change of weather patterns, and long droughts are just manifestations of climate change, with the Philippines being one of the most vulnerable countries . This is what Dr. Rodel D. Lasco, a member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), claimed.


In an exclusive interview with GMA News Online, Dr. Lasco explained that one reason for this is that the country “has a long coastline where millions of people live including in urban centers such as Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao.”

According to a World Bank report, sea level rise within this century will affect a larger percentage of the Philippine coastline compared to that of other developing countries of Asia and the Pacific region.
 
Sea levels rising

“By the end of this century, sea levels in the region are expected to rise by about 125 centimeters, exceeding the global average by 10-15%,” noted the bank report, “Getting a Grip on Climate Change in the Philippines.”


“Even assuming the sea level in the region rises at the global average rate of about 100 centimeters, about 14% of the Philippines’ total population and 42% of its total coastal population will be affected by intensifying storm surges resulting from more intense typhoons.”

In a weekly forum some years back, a weather specialist said the waters around the archipelago rose by 1.8 millimeter every year from 1961 to 2003.

In a presentation, a study was shown that the coastal areas in Davao City, Navotas, Malabon, Cavite, and Legazpi City sank by 15 centimeters from 1970 to 1999.

On a personal level, American best-selling novelist Tom Anthony, based in Davao, noticed this phenomenon recently.


Two years ago, Anthony built a house near a beach front but when he returned recently he observed cracks on the cemented pathway. Some portions were no longer passable and it was dangerous to walk on it. The dead end of the long road from the entrance is now blocked with a sign that reads DANGER. The cemented fence of a house built near the seashore may soon give way as the waves of the sea keep on encroaching intohis backyard.


View Larger Map “This is a proof that sea level rise is for real,” said Anthony, author of “Rebels of Mindanao.” “I think people should stop thinking that climate change is a state of mind.
We need to do something about it now before it’s too late.”

Former Press Secretary Jesus G. Dureza also believes that the constant flooding happening in Davao City in recent years is due to sea level rise. “My calculation is that (the sea level) has risen by one foot over a period of 20 years,” he wrote in his column, “Advocacy Mindanao.” “Hence, rain waters and floods no longer easily flow or empty out into the sea. They are clogged in the waterways and spill out into the riverbanks.”

Dureza said that when flood waters rush down during high tide, they get stuck, at times and worse, a “backflow” of seawater during high tide. When seawaters rise high, it flows back inland through rivers. Hence, low-lying areas or subdivisions or residential areas around or near riverbanks are in trouble.

“I know this because I personally witnessed how the sea level had gone up over the years,” he pointed out. “Our family lived for four years in our resort house by the sea in Davao City in the 1990s (or about 20 years ago) while we were slowly renovating our house in the GSIS area inland. Our beach house was in fact built over the water, jutting out into the sea, with stilt cement posts and under our floor was sea water rising and ebbing.”

According to him, the highest water level during high tides left water traces on the cement posts. “I would notice because every time I woke up in the morning, I could see the water markings,” he said.
Recently, Dureza asked his resort employee to check the water markings on the same post he was monitoring for years.

“He told me the highest tide level has risen by about one foot or 12 inches from its highest level 20 years ago. Our science people may dispute this but I can show them the posts. In fact, we had to demolish one resort hut which was also jutting out into the sea because the water level rose to touch the floor over the years. It was way above the water when it was built.”
 
Vanishing islands, inundated plains

The rise of sea levels is just one of the most certain outcomes of climate change. “A continuing rise in average global sea level would inundate parts of many heavily populated river deltas and the cities on them, making them unhabitable, and would destroy many beaches around the world,” the IPCC said.

The Philippines, whose coastline stretches 18,000 kilometers, is very vulnerable to sea level rise. The country ranks fourth in the Global Climate Risk Index. Fifteen of the 16 regions of the Philippines are vulnerable to sea level rise.

A study conducted by the Philippine Country Study to Address Climate Change some years back showed that the Manila Bay is already subjected to several hazards, including flooding and storm surges.

“Shoreline changes due to reclamation for housing, ports, coastal roads, buildings and other urbanized development are high, adding to an increased threat of inundation,” the study said.

Dr. Rosa Perez, a climate scientist at the Manila Observatory, said the sea level that has been projected in the study for the year 2100 would have risen by 0.3 meter and 1 meter to represent the low and high estimates and 2 meters for the worst-case scenario.

All of Cavite, she pointed out, will see a sea level rise of at least 30 centimeters. With every meter that it gains, the sea goes at least three kilometers inlands, she added. The sea will literally rise to flood the plains.

Climate change, scientists claim, is caused by an increase in the amount of greenhouse gases spewed into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases refer to carbon dioxide and other industrial gases.
 
43rd in greenhouse emissions


The Philippines ranks 43rd in terms of global greenhouse gas emissions and 112th in terms of emissions intensity, accounting for only 0.3% of global emissions.


“The country’s total greenhouse gas emissions, excluding land use change and forestry, have hovered around 80 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent since the late 1990s,” the World Bank report said.
The country’s principal emission sources are the energy and transport sectors, accounting for36% and 32% of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2005, respectively.

“By 2030, under a business as usual scenario, the emissions from the energy sector are estimated to quadruple,” said the World Bank report.

Global warming has increased monthly heat records by a factor of five

Source:  http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/monatliche-hitzerekorde-haben-sich-durch-die-erderwaermung-verfuenffacht

 

01/14/2013 - Monthly temperature extremes have become much more frequent, as measurements from around the world indicate. On average, there are now five times as many record-breaking hot months worldwide than could be expected without long-term global warming, shows a study now published in Climatic Change. In parts of Europe, Africa and southern Asia the number of monthly records has increased even by a factor of ten. 80 percent of observed monthly records would not have occurred without human influence on climate, concludes the authors-team of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Complutense University of Madrid. 

 

“The last decade brought unprecedented heat waves; for instance in the US in 2012, in Russia in 2010, in Australia in 2009, and in Europe in 2003,” lead-author Dim Coumou says. “Heat extremes are causing many deaths, major forest fires, and harvest losses – societies and ecosystems are not adapted to ever new record-breaking temperatures.” The new study relies on 131 years of monthly temperature data for more than 12.000 grid points around the world, provided by NASA. Comprehensive analysis reveals the increase in records.

The researchers developed a robust statistical model that explains the surge in the number of records to be a consequence of the long-term global warming trend. That surge has been particularly steep over the last 40 years, due to a steep global-warming trend over this period. Superimposed on this long-term rise, the data show the effect of natural variability, with especially high numbers of heat records during years with El Niño events. This natural variability, however, does not explain the overall development of record events, found the researchers.

Natural variability does not explain the overall development of record events

If global warming continues, the study projects that the number of new monthly records will be 12 times as high in 30 years as it would be without climate change. “Now this doesn’t mean there will be 12 times more hot summers in Europe than today – it actually is worse,“ Coumou points out. For the new records set in the 2040s will not just be hot by today’s standards. “To count as new records, they actually have to beat heat records set in the 2020s and 2030s, which will already be hotter than anything we have experienced to date,” explains Coumou. “And this is just the global average – in some continental regions, the increase in new records will be even greater.”

“Statistics alone cannot tell us what the cause of any single heat wave is, but they show a large and systematic increase in the number of heat records due to global warming,” says Stefan Rahmstorf, a co-author of the study and co-chair of PIK’s research domain Earth System Analysis. “Today, this increase is already so large that by far most monthly heat records are due to climate change. The science is clear that only a small fraction would have occurred naturally.”

Article: Coumou, D., Robinson, A., Rahmstorf, S. (2013): Global increase in record-breaking monthly-mean temperatures. Climatic Change (online) [doi:10.1007/s10584-012-0668-1]
Weblink to the article: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0668-1

For further information please contact:
PIK press office
Phone: +49 331 288 25 07
E-Mail: press@pik-potsdam.de

Climate Change Now Blamed for Volcanic Eruptions

By Laura Sinpetru

Source: Softpedia at http://news.softpedia.com/news/Climate-Change-Now-Blamed-for-Volcanic-Eruptions-317436.shtml

Up until recently, it was believed that the volcano-climate relationship only went one way. Thus, most people agree that, once a volcano erupts and releases significant amounts of sulfur dioxide into the air, the weather is bound to cool down to a certain extent.

This phenomenon happens because of a very simple reason: sunlight has a tougher time reaching the earth, Oil Price explains.

However, a new study carried out by geologists working with the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel argues that shifts in global weather conditions can also influence the way in which active volcanoes across the world behave.

In other words, global warming can foster volcanic eruptions.

The scientists who looked into this issue explain the situation as follows: during an ice age, most of the water housed in seas and oceans turns into ice and builds up on land.

This basically means that the continents find themselves compressed by all the extra weight now sitting on top of them.

However, once this period of extreme cold comes to an end and the ice starts to melt, said extra weight makes its way back into seas and oceans.

As a result of these climate shifts' toying with the pressure applied on the continents' surface and on the sea floor on a regular basis, the magma gets agitated and sooner or later volcanic eruptions start taking place.

Although this study focused on the Pacific Ring of Fire and its responses to an ice age's settling in or coming to an end throughout the past million years, there are other scientists who argue that man-made global warming might also translate into volcanoes' erupting ever more frequently, primarily due to the melting of the Arctic ice and rising sea levels.

The findings of this study linking climate change to volcanic eruptions were published in the scientific journal Geology.

International Conference Panel "ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND PUBLIC POLICY", June 28, 1-5 p.m., EDSA Shangri-la, Mandaluyong City, Philippines

 UP-NCPAG International Conference

Invitation: Panel 2-A on “ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND PUBLIC POLICY” in the 2012 International Conference on Public Administration (UP-NCPAG@60), 28 June 2012, 1-5 p.m., EDSA Shangri-la Hotel, Mandaluyong City, Philippines

Chair:    PROF. EBINEZER R. FLORANO, PhD

                Assistant Professor

                University of the Philippines-National College of Public Administration and Governance

Speakers:

1.       HON. MEL SENEN S. SARMIENTO

Representative, Western Samar, 1^st District,

House of Representatives, Republic of the Philippines

“Best Practices in Climate Change Adaptation”

2.       DEAN ANTONIO G.M. LA VIÑA, JSD

Professor and Dean

Ateneo School of Government,  Ateneo de Manila University

“Issues, Problems and Challenges Related to Climate Change Governance in the Philippines: A Policy Science Approach”

3.       MS. KALAYAAN PULIDO-CONSTANTINO

Oxfam-Philippines

Disaster Risk Financing in the Philippines

4.       DR. ANDREAS LANGE

GIZ Decentralization Program

“Land Use Planning for Climate Change Adaptation in the Philippines: What Can Be Done?”

5.       MR. TITO FORTES

City Climate Change Project Office

Sorsogon City, Philippines

“Climate Change and Local Governance in Sorsogon City”

6.       LT. COL. VLADIMIR T. MATA

Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office

Dagupan City, Philippines

“Coastal Climate Change Adaptation: Case of Dagupan City”

LECTURE: Green Climate Fund by Dr. Sarah Bracking

Title:  Private Equity Funds and the Green Climate Fund:How Successful are Financial Institutions at Delivering Development and Managing Environmental Harm?

Date and Time: 26 June 2012, 2:00-5:00 p.m.

Venue: Case Room or Room 307, National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines (CLCD), UP-NCPAG), Diliman, Quezon City

Contact Person:  Mr. Don Jeffery Quebral, Center for Leadership, Citizenship, and Democracy (UP-NCPAG), Tel. No. 925-4109 or 981-8500 local 4158

Lecturer: Dr. Sarah Bracking is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Development at the Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, England.

Dr. Bracking attended first York University in the United Kingdom (BA Hons Politics), then Leeds University (MA, International Resources and Development; PhD, Structural Adjustment, Business and the State). She then worked as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Democratisation Studies at Leeds University, principally on the International IDEA State of Democracy Project. She then moved to the University of Manchester where she is currently a Senior Lecturer, teaching “Politics and Development and the Political Economy of Development.” She is editor of Corruption and Development (Palgrave, 2007) and author of Money and Power (Pluto, 2009). . Dr. Bracking is currently completing a book on The Financialisation of Power in Africa.

Her research interests include political economy and political science on African States and markets, and comparative political analysis of democracies and democratization; malign politics, political corruption, authoritarianism and state collapse; poverty and the political economy of impoverishment, dispossession and destitution, and development finance and its relation to the global political economy.       

Reactors: From relevant sectors, i.e., academe, business, government and NGOs

SCIENTISTS ADVANCE DOOMSDAY CLOCK NEARER TO MIDNIGHT

Source: GMA NEWS NETWORK (http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/244593/scitech/science/scientists-advance-doomsday-clock-nearer-to-midnight?ref=latest)

January 14, 2012 6:12pm

Lamenting continuing inaction on climate change and inadequate progress on nuclear weapons reduction and proliferation, scientists have moved the notional “Doomsday Clock” one minute closer to midnight.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which maintains the “Doomsday Clock,” said this means the world is getting closer to annihilation.

“It is five minutes to midnight. Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in 2007,” it said.

BAS said the last time the Doomsday Clock minute hand moved was in January 2010, when the Clock’s minute hand was pushed back one minute from five to six minutes before midnight.

A separate article on tech site CNET said that since the clock was turned on in 1947, its hands have moved back and forth several times.

“Starting off at 7 minutes to midnight, the clock was set to two minutes in 1952 after the first test of the hydrogen bomb ... It fell back as far as 17 minutes to midnight in 1991 when the U.S. and Russia began cutting down on their nuclear weaponry,” it said.

Climate change

The BAS said the global community may be near a point of no return in efforts to prevent a catastrophe from changes in Earth’s atmosphere.

It said the International Energy Agency (IAEA) projects that unless societies begin building alternatives to carbon-emitting energy technologies over the next five years, the world is doomed to a warmer climate.

This means “harsher weather, droughts, famine, water scarcity, rising sea levels, loss of island nations, and increasing ocean acidification,” it said.

“Since fossil-fuel burning power plants and infrastructure built in 2012-2020 will produce energy — and emissions — for 40 to 50 years, the actions taken in the next few years will set us on a path that will be impossible to redirect. Even if policy leaders decide in the future to reduce reliance on carbon-emitting technologies, it will be too late,” it warned.

Among the existing alternatives for producing base-load electricity with low carbon dioxide emissions is nuclear power, it said.

Russia, China, India, and South Korea will likely continue to construct plants, enrich fuel, and shape the global nuclear power industry, it added.

Countries that had earlier signaled interest in building nuclear power capacity, such as Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and others, are still intent on acquiring civilian nuclear reactors for electricity despite the Fukushima disaster.

However, a number of countries have renounced nuclear power, including Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. In Japan, only eight of 54 power plants currently operate because prefecture governors, responding to people’s opposition to nuclear power, have not allowed reactors back online.

In the United States, increased costs of additional safety measures may make nuclear power too expensive to be a realistic alternative to natural gas and other fossil fuels.

The hopeful news is that alternatives to burning coal, oil, and uranium for energy continue to show promise, BAS said.

It said solar and photovoltaic technologies are seeing reductions in price, wind turbines are being adopted for commercial electricity, and energy conservation and efficiency are becoming accepted as sources for industrial production and residential use.

“Yet, we are very concerned that the pace of change may not be adequate and that the transformation that seems to be on its way will not take place in time to meet the hardships that large-scale disruption of the climate portends,” it said.

“As we see it, the major challenge at the heart of humanity’s survival in the 21st century is how to meet energy needs for economic growth in developing and industrial countries without further damaging the climate, without exposing people to loss of health and community, and without risking further spread of nuclear weapons,” it added.

It added the challenges to rid the world of nuclear weapons, harness nuclear power, and meet the nearly inexorable climate disruptions from global warming are complex and interconnected.

But it said its Science and Security Board is heartened by the Arab Spring, the Occupy movements, political protests in Russia, and by the actions of ordinary citizens in Japan as they call for fair treatment and attention to their needs.

“For this reason, we ask other scientists and experts to join us in engaging ordinary citizens. Together, we can present the most significant questions to policymakers and industry leaders. Most important, we can demand answers and action. As the first atomic scientists of the Bulletin recognized in 1948, the burden of disseminating information about the social and economic ‘implications of nuclear energy and other new scientific developments rests with the intelligent citizens of the world; the intense and continuing cooperation of the scientists is assured,’” it said.

On the other hand, BAS called for urgent attention to avert catastrophe from nuclear weapons and global warming. Such measures include:

• Ratification by the United States and China of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and progress on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty;
• Implementing multinational management of the civilian nuclear energy fuel cycle with strict standards for safety, security, and nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, including eliminating reprocessing for plutonium separation;
• Strengthening the International Atomic Energy Agency’s capacity to oversee nuclear materials, technology development, and its transfer;
• Adopting and fulfilling climate change agreements to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through tax incentives, harmonized domestic regulation and practice;
• Transforming the coal power sector of the world economy to retire older plants and to require in new plants the capture and storage of the CO2 they produce;
• Vastly increasing public and private investments in alternatives to carbon emitting energy sources, such as solar and wind, and in technologies for energy storage, and sharing the results worldwide.

Nuclear disarmament

Despite the promise of a new spirit of international cooperation, and reductions in tensions between the United States and Russia, the BAS Science and Security Board said the path toward a world free of nuclear weapons is not at all clear, and leadership is failing.

It said the ratification in December 2010 of the New START treaty between Russia and the United States reversed the previous drift in US-Russia nuclear relations.

“However, failure to act on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by leaders in the United States, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, and North Korea and on a treaty to cut off production of nuclear weapons material continues to leave the world at risk from continued development of nuclear weapons,” it said.

It said the world still has approximately 19,500 nuclear weapons, enough power to destroy the Earth’s inhabitants several times over.

“Obstacles to a world free of nuclear weapons remain. Among these are disagreements between the United States and Russia about the utility and purposes of missile defense, as well as insufficient transparency, planning, and cooperation among the nine nuclear weapons states to support a continuing drawdown,” it said.

The resulting distrust leads nearly all nuclear weapons states to hedge their bets by modernizing their nuclear arsenals, it said.

“While governments claim they are only ensuring the safety of their warheads through replacement of bomb components and launch systems, as the deliberate process of arms reduction proceeds, such developments appear to other states to be signs of substantial military build-ups,” it said.

The Science and Security Board also reviewed progress in meeting the challenges of nuclear weapons proliferation.

It said ambiguity about Iran’s nuclear power program continues to be the most prominent example of this unsolved problem — centrifuges can enrich uranium for both civilian power plants and military weapons.

It said it remains to be seen how many additional countries will pursue nuclear power, but without solutions to the dual-use problem and without incentives sufficient to resist military applications, the world is playing with the explosive potential of a million suns and a fire that will not go out.

Also, it said the potential for nuclear weapons use in regional conflicts in the Middle East, Northeast Asia, and particularly in South Asia is also alarming.

“Ongoing efforts to ease tensions, deal with extremism and terrorist acts, and reduce the role of nuclear weapons in international relations have had only halting success. Yet we believe that international diplomatic pressure as well as burgeoning citizen action will help political leaders to see the folly of continuing to rely on nuclear weapons for national security,” it said.

Nuclear energy

The BAS said it is disheartening that the world has suffered another calamitous accident - the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, which raised significant questions that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board believe must be addressed.

“Safer nuclear reactor designs need to be developed and built, and more stringent oversight, training, and attention are needed to prevent future disasters. A major question to be addressed is: How can complex systems like nuclear power stations be made less susceptible to accidents and errors in judgment?” it said. — TJD, GMA News

Record-high greenhouse gases to linger for decades —UN

By Tom Miles

Source: GMA News at http://www.gmanews.tv/story/239253/technology/record-high-greenhouse-gases-to-linger-for-decades-un(Viewed on 22 November 2011).

GENEVA - Concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases blamed for global warming reached record levels in 2010 and will linger in the atmosphere for decades, even if the world stops emissions output today, the U.N.'s weather agency said on Monday.

Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, rose by 2.3 parts per million to 389 ppm in 2010 from the previous year, higher than the 1990s average (1.5 ppm) and the past decade (2.0 ppm), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.

If the world is to limit global average temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius, scientists say emissions volumes must not have more than 450 ppm of carbon dioxide.

"The atmospheric burden of greenhouse gases due to human activities has yet again reached record levels since pre-industrial time," said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.

"Even if we managed to halt our greenhouse gas emissions today, and this is far from the case, they would continue to linger in the atmosphere for decades to come and so continue to affect the delicate balance of our living planet and our climate," he said.

The report adds to a number of warnings that time is running out to act on climate change and prevent worsening extreme weather as the Earth's temperature rises.

BP data earlier this year showed global carbon dioxide emissions grew at their fastest rate since 1969 last year, as countries rebounded from economic recession.

In 2010, countries agreed in Cancun, Mexico, that deep emissions cuts were needed to hold an increase in global average temperature below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a threshold beyond which scientists say risks even more extreme weather, crop failure and major floods.

Delegates from nearly 200 countries will meet in South Africa next week for a U.N. summit but only modest steps towards a broader climate deal are seen as likely.

HOTTING UP

The WMO said greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere increased by 1.4 percent last year from 2009 and 29 percent since 1990, mainly driven by fossil fuel use and agriculture.

The WMO measured the overall amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, based on monitoring stations in more than 50 countries, including natural emissions and absorption processes - so-called sources and sinks - as well as emissions caused by human activity.

Three of the most dangerous gases, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, were more prevalent in the atmosphere in 2010 than at any time since the industrial revolution.

The second biggest greenhouse gas, methane, has been growing in the past five years after levelling off between 2000 and 2006, for reasons that are not fully understood.

The third biggest greenhouse gas is nitrous oxide, which can trap almost 300 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. Its main human source is the use of nitrogen-based fertilisers, which the report said had "profoundly affected the global nitrogen cycle".

The impact of fertiliser use is so marked that more nitrous oxide is detected in the northern hemisphere, where more fertiliser is used, than in the south.

The WMO data showed no pause in the growth of greenhouse gases and more work needs to be done to help understand which policies would have the most effect, the report's authors said.

So far, the clearest discernable impact of policies was a decrease in chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which were banned because they caused depletion of the ozone layer.

But hydrofluorocarbons, which have replaced CFCs, are also potent greenhouse gases and their abundance in the atmosphere, while still small, is rising at a rapid rate. — Reuters

Climate change blamed for storms, flooding, drought

An inconvenient truth for Philippines: Wetter, drier
By Cathy Yamsuan, Kristine L. Alave

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 3, 2011 at http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/69281/climate-change-blamed-for-storms-flooding-drought#disqus_thread

Officials have warned Filipinos to brace against the inconvenient truth of devastating storms, flooding and drought unless policies and projects are put in place to mitigate climate change.

Undersecretary Graciano Yumul of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) said that in the next 20 to 50 years, the Philippines would find “the dry seasons drier and the wet seasons wetter.”

“With the climate change scenario, we will see more of this as a frequent reality,” Yumul said in an interview. “What we used to consider as abnormal we should now consider as normal,” he noted.

Scientists describe the phenomenon as any distinct changes in weather patterns, such as temperature, rainfall, wind and snow over a long period of time.

A major factor is global warming—the increase in the oceanic and atmospheric temperatures of the planet resulting in the melting of the ice caps and the rising of the seas.

The doomsday scenarios, depicted in Al Gore’s 2006 award-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” are now playing out in the Philippines.

The climatology division of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) has released the results of a study in 2010 concluding that climate data from 1960 to 2003 showed significant increases in the frequency of hot days and warm nights in many areas of the country.

On the other hand, Pagasa observed that cooler days had decreased. This trend mirrors the experience of other countries in Southeast Asia, Pagasa said as it predicted more rains in the Philippines in the coming decades.

“Reduction of rainfall is seen in March, April and May in most provinces, while rainfall increases are likely in Luzon and Visayas in 2020 and 2050 during the June-July-August and September-October-November seasons,” the study said.

“Greater increase in rainfall is expected in the provinces of Luzon (0.9-63 percent) and Visayas (2-22 percent) during the peak southwest monsoon period (June-July-August).”

The number of days where temperature will breach 35 degrees Celsius will also increase in 2020 and 2050, according to Pagasa models.

Fishponds

Antonio Apostol Jr., chief geologist of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, said human activities in the regions that bore the brunt of Typhoons “Pedring” and “Quiel” that struck the country last week exacerbated the hazards and the risks.

The plains of Bulacan and Pampanga have always been prone to floods, he said.

But the proliferation of fishponds and aquaculture projects in the major waterways and in the coasts has slowed down the flow of water from the typhoons and the dams, resulting in prolonged flooding in residential and rural areas, Apostol said.

“These have a multiplier effect. So when the water was released from the dams, the natural drainage could not handle it anymore,” he said.

If there were no fishponds and garbage clogging the canals and rivers of the region, “the outflow would have been quicker,” Apostol said.

Floods and landslides will be more widespread until officials realize that they should adapt to the changes in weather and lessen their effects on the general population, Apostol and Yumul said.

“In other parts of the country, we are seeing the same situation. In the cities of Butuan and Cotabato, there were floods, too, because the rivers were clogged with water lilies,” Apostol said.

“In Cotabato, for instance, the industries pollute the river there with nitrates which induce the growth of the lilies,” he added.

Deforestation

Yumul also noted that deforestation had caused flooding in areas which did not experience it in the past. “The deforestation in the last 20, 50 years has come back to us,” he said.

Local officials, he said, should be more prepared to respond to extreme weather events to prevent the loss of lives and properties. “We’ve been telling them this for the last 10 years,” Yumul said.

Ricardo Calderon, regional executive director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said yesterday that forest cover in the western side of Nueva Ecija and Bulacan was still adequate. He blamed flooding on heavy rainfall, the release of dam water and high tide.

“Although our forest cover may be high, the trees could not retain the volume of water,” Calderon said.

He denied illegal logging was rampant, disputing claims by Philippine Daily Inquirer informants that local officials were collaborating with the activity.

‘Ondoy’ scenario

Senator Loren Legarda, chair of the Senate climate change committee, said she called Yumul on Saturday night to ask whether protocols in releasing water from dams in Central Luzon were observed last week.

“The undersecretary said floods will be the norm, that even if a typhoon brings a lighter volume of water, we can expect this scenario happening now with Typhoons Pedring and Quiel. He said Pedring brought only 30 percent of Ondoy’s volume and yet the damage was nearly the same,” Legarda told the Inquirer.

“That means if Tropical Storm ‘Ondoy’ happens again, a typhoon with that huge amount of rain, we have to brace for even deeper floods,” she warned.

Legarda said the confluence of events she had been warning against for years had now led to disturbing images of helpless residents waiting for help on rooftops, long lines of people queuing for potable water, and whole barangays transformed into river extensions.

Soil erosion

The senator said that illegal logging, slash-and-burn farming and quarrying in mountain areas would lead to soil erosion and flooding.

Representatives of the Central Luzon dam operators have been summoned to a hearing of the Senate on Monday afternoon.

“If (Pagasa) can predict the volume of rainfall, dam operators can already release water in increments that would not be destructive,” Legarda explained.

“If this kind of meteorological information can be determined, say, one week before a typhoon arrives, does it not make common sense that the dam operators would not release the water only on the day it finally arrives,” she asked.

She noted that dam reportedly released water on September 27, after Pedring struck.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile cautioned that predicting rainfall would not be easy.

“The nature of calamity is that weather is really unpredictable. Who really knows if the rainfall prediction is correct? What if the amount of water released by the dams based on Pagasa’s advisory could not be recovered from the expected rains?” Enrile said.

He said that while the government could always attempt to determine accountability, “we’ll have to find long-term solutions and planning, instead of just prosecuting anybody.” With reports from Tonette Orejas and Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon

FORUM ON CLEAR AIR 10+2

Dear Partners for Clean Air:

We have the honor to invite you to attend our upcoming Forum on Clean Air 10 + 2 and PCA General Assembly on June 14 -15, 2011 at the Social Hall of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Visayas Avenue, Quezon City. Hoping that you may be able to attend this important event.

Kindly send your response on or before June 6, 2011 by calling the PCA Secretariat at telephone numbers 395-7149 and 0916 397-8288.

Thank you very much!

PCA Secretariat

Public Administration Students Conduct Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation Workshops in Real, Quezon Province

In the midst of the regional and national disasters (Japan earthquake and flashfloods in Visayas and Mindanao) that gripped the country and the whole world, students of Public Administration 191 (Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation – a course of Prof. Ebinezer Florano) of the National College of Public Administration and Governance of the University of the Philippines (UP-NCPAG) cast their fears aside and went to the Municipality of Real, Quezon Province to conduct community-based climate change vulnerability assessment and adaptation workshops on 16-18 March 2011. The workshops enabled them to have hands-on experience in managing them, and at the same time, assist the municipal government jumpstart the formulation of their own local climate change action plan mandated for all local government units (LGUs) under the Climate Change Act of 2009.

Real is a 3rd class coastal municipality at the northeast side of Luzon island bounded by Lamon Bay (east), Rizal and Laguna Provinces (west), Municipalities of Nakar and Infanta (north), and the Municipality of Mauban (south). It has a total land area of 563.8 square kilometer and is composed of 17 barangays with 33,073 residents as of 2007 (Wikipedia 2011).

Real has had it shares of natural disasters. In December 2004, 500 people were either proclaimed dead or missing after the municipality was ravaged by Typhoons Violeta, Winnie, and Yoyong (Wikipedia 2011). Other hazards that constantly sow fear among the residents include flowing debris, slope failures and landslides.

The class conducted vulnerability assessment using the “Vulnerability Assessment Toolkit” developed by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Coastal Services Center which consists of seven steps: (1) hazard identification, (2) hazard analysis, (3) critical facilities analysis, (4) social analysis, (5) environmental analysis, (6) economic analysis, and (7) adaptation opportunity analysis.

During the hazard identification and prioritization stages, the participants agreed that the municipal government should focus on preparing for the following hazards which they ranked in terms of frequency, area of impact, and magnitude: (1) typhoons/storm surge, (2) flashfloods, (3) landslide, and (5) tsunami. The class was happy to learn that two of the hazards that they pre-identified (sea-level rise (SLR), floods, and earthquakes) were among the prioritized hazards by the participants who listened intently on the on the students’ reports, based mostly on scientific reports and maps gathered from NAMRIA, PHIVOLCS, PAG-ASA, and DENR-GMB.

During the climate change adaptation workshops, in response to the pre-identified hazards, the participants enumerated and ranked the following adaptation measures:

• Sea-Level Rise: (1) mangrove planting, (2) RICE (research, information, communication, education), (3) seawall construction, (4) relocation of affected residents and establishments, and (5) non-privatization of coastal areas.

• Earthquakes: (1) RICE, (2) zoning ordinance, (3) construction of resilient accommodations, (4.5) relocate affected residents, and (4.5) population control.

• Floods: (1) RICE, (2) watershed management, (3) relocation and provide buffer zone, (4) tree planting, and (5) construction of seawalls and dikes.

The workshops were attended by municipal government staff from the following offices: agriculture, planning and development, social work, tourism, engineering, municipal administrator, etc. Mayor Joel Amando Diestro and Municipal Administrator Manuel Meraña approved the holding of the workshops. Students who conducted the workshops were: Diane Zapata, Ayesha Mambuay, Ace Cardenas, Noelle Rivera, Kaizzer Tanada, Leizle Arlando, Ishmail Bahjin, Mabelle Romero, Camilo Bugayong, Mitchka Nicanor, Nikki Grafil, Gian Pantaleon, Beatriz Caday, Angelica Herico, Raphael Itchon, and Raeon Laspinas.

Part 1: Governance of Climate Change in the Philippines

(for a clearer copy, e-mail the author at efloranoy@yahoo.com)

by Ebinezer R. Florano
with inputs from the MoI Cluster of the CCC-NCCAP Technical Workshop*

The Philippine Climate Change Commission (CCC) conducted a "Technical Workshop on the National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP)" on 26-28 January 2011 at Stotsenberg Hotel in Clark Field, Pampanga. The objective, among others, was to help the CCC create concrete action plans for the implementation of the NCCAP from 2011-2028. The 500+ participants from national government agencies, local government units, academe, political parties, and civil society organizations were grouped into several clusters, one of which is the Means of Implementation (MoI) cluster. The MoI cluster was able to draw up some concrete plans for the NCCAP and the CCC. In addition, they drew the relationships of the CCC to various national government agencies and local government units (LGUs), taking into consideration the legal mandates of these agencies. The diagram above is the product of the long-discussion on what should be the working relationships of various government agencies in the area of climate change governance in the Philippines.

In a summary, the President of the Philippines provides the strategic direction on climate change governance. He/she is assisted by the CCC which is the sole policy-making body of the government tasked to coordinate, monitor and evaluate the programs and action plans of the government relating to climate change pursuant to the provisions of the Climate Change Act of 2009 (Republic Act No. 9729). The CC policies shall be integrated into the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) and all other plans that the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is tasked to do as the central development planning agency of the country. The President is Chairman of both the CCC and the NEDA, hence, coordination should not pose as a problem between the two agencies.

For 2011-2016, NEDA has chosen "Green Growth" as its theme for the MTPDP of the Aquino Administration. Planning for CC and green growth, theoretically, should use both the bottom-up and top-down approach. The President, at the beginning of his/her term, shall instruct, through NEDA, all government agencies, including LGUs and government-owned and/or controlled corporations (GOCCs), to formulate their development plans according to his/her vision and campaign promises.

Now, that climate change is mandated to be mainstreamed into all development plans by the Climate Change Act of 2009, the NEDA guidelines should reflect this. Using the NEDA guidelines, all LGUs, which are at the frontline of the CC campaigns, through their local development councils (LDCs), shall formulate their Local Climate Change Action Plan (LCCAP) which shall serve as inputs, together with plans for local disaster risk reduction (DRR), to the local development plans (LDPs), annual investment plans, etc. Municipalities and cities can be assisted by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), various local government leagues, and their provincial governments in the formulation of the LCCAP and LDPs.

All of these local development plans shall be integrated and be used for the formulation of regional development plans (RDPs). In the formulation of the RDPs, multi-stakeholder participation - from regional offices of national government agencies, provincial chief executives, and civil society organizations - is employed. The regional offices of NEDA act as secretariat to the Regional Development Councils which are tasked to formulate their RDPs.

From the regional level, the NEDA regional offices shall transmit the RDPs to their national office - the NEDA Secretariat. The RDPs shall serve as inputs in the formulation of the MTPDP. The latter shall be approved by the NEDA Board whose chairman is the President of the Philippines.

Meanwhile, all LCCAPs shall also be transmitted directly to the CCC which shall integrate all of them and see to it that they are mainstreamed into the MTPDP.

The diagram above can also be used not only in mainstreaming of CC matters in the development plans but also in the implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of CC programs, plans, and projects.

Unfortunately, during the discussions in the MoI cluster, it was reported that the 2011-2016 MTPDP is being formulated without the benefit of the top-down and bottom-up approaches described above. Hence, there is lingering doubt that the MTPDP would really reflect the LDPs and RDPs of LGUs, and even the sectoral plans of national government agencies, to climate-proof the country's development.

*Note: The diagram and discussions benefitted from the contributions from the following government agencies, LGU umbrella organization, environmental NGOs, political parties, and an academic institutions, namely: Climate Change Commission, National Economic and Development Authority, Department of Budget and Management, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Transportation and Communication (government agencies); Union of Local Government Authorities, Rice Watch and Action Network, Conservation International, Philippine Clean Air Initiative (NGOs); University of the Philippines-National College of Public Administration and Governance (academe); and Partido Kalikasan, and 1-UTAK (political parties).

*Disclaimer: The author is solely responsible for this write-up. All agencies and organizations mentioned above should not be held liable.

(Next topic: Other suggestions from the MoI cluster presented to the CCC during the technical workshop).

COP16 approves the Cancun Accords: Documents include creation of a Green Fund

Following negotiations that ran through early Saturday morning, delegates at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) in Cancun adopted by consensus the Cancun Accords, a series of documents that will provide the basis for efforts to confront climate change after the Kyoto Protocol expires.

The accords include a $30 billion-package for 2012 to aid nations taking immediate actions to halt effects of global warming, as well as financing for long-term projects to protect the environment through a Green Fund, which will provide $100 million annually for adaptation and mitigation measures.

Delegates also approved the creation of the forestry program Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) to facilitate the flow of resources to communities dedicated to forest conservation.

The President Felipe Calderón congratulated representatives of nearly 200 countries and the Conference authorities, including Ambassador Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, who headed COP16/CMP6 activities throughout the two-week conference.

"You have broken that inertia (toward negativity) and have traded a feeling of collective failure for one that recovers hope in multilateralism,” President Calderón Hinojosa said after the Cancun Accords were approved.

Source: http://www.cc2010.mx/en/press-center/news/news-interviews_2010121153618.htm

Note: Mute the video above to listen to the video below.

SAD NEWS: Scientists find ‘creeping effects’ of climate change in Philippine coastal areas

By Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:16:00 02/04/2011

MANILA, Philippines—If the world worries about monster storms, floods and landslides, what the eyes don't usually see should concern them as much.
Top marine scientists from around the country have found indications of the "creeping effects" of climate change on marine life—a study aimed at shifting focus from changes in weather phenomena on land to those happening underwater.

Tagged ICE CREAM (Integrated Coastal Enhancement: Climate Research, Enhancement and Adaptive Management), the government-funded project has found rising water temperatures, coral bleaching and coastal erosion in several of its 28 project sites dotting the Philippine coastline.

The team shared its initial findings to the INQUIRER as it marked the start of its third year. The P98-million project, funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DoST), the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International involves more than a dozen marine science experts from across the country and separate staff at project sites.

“Something that is not visible is much more difficult to understand. It (the sea) is much more prone to being dismissed as being “no, there's still a lot of fish,” said Wilfredo Campos, a marine biologist from the University of the Philippines-Visayas.
“You don't really see what's happening. You see that there are mudslides, you see what's happening in the forest, but at sea, you really don't know what's happening. You look at the sea and feel that it (resources) is still finite, when actually, it's not,” Campos told the INQUIRER on Thursday.

Much debate still surrounds climate change, its causes and effects, but Porfirio Aliño, marine biologist from the UP Marine Science Institute, would rather look the at the bottomline.

“The climate is always changing, how you see it in relation to whether it's going to be more frequent or accelerated. But the bottomline is how do we respond to it, given that if we don't do anything, it will become accelerated,” he said.

“One question is that, climate has changed in evolutionary time. But the point is, during evolutionary time, there were no people yet. Now, climate change has a big effect on people,” he said.

Based on initial findings, the DoST climate change project found a 3-percent rise in shallow water temperature off Lian, Batangas in April to May of last year—an increase not observed even in intense summers.

“By May, it spiked to 31 degrees Celsius, while the normal range is 27 degrees to 29 degrees. For water, that's very high,” said Maricar Samson, an environmental scientist from the De La Salle University.

Such warm waters caused coral bleaching, which endangered an ecosystem that could buffer vulnerable coastlines from storm surges, the team said.

“If you take care of the reef, it will be able to compensate with sea level rise. But if of course it is in poor condition, it will not be able to buffer, for example, the storm surge. The increase in sea level will reach the shore,” he said.
Such rate of temperature rise, if observed every 5 years, would leave only 1 percent of the current coral reef population, Samson said. The same rise, if seen every 10 years, would leave only 11 percent.

In Botolan, Zambales, scientists found out that the coastline has receded significantly from 1977 to 2003.

“This has a big impact on the coast . Now, we're trying to do some projections in some parts of the Philippines on what will happen on their coastal stability,” Samson said.

Another study under ICE CREAM found a decrease in the productivity of fish species in coastal areas by roughly 20 percent, a “very fast rate” observed within two decades said Aliño.

“If we don't take care of our coral reefs, mangroves, sea grass and other habitats, obviously, the decline will be fast, we cannot cope with climate change. The other thing is, we are not as conscious about it unfortunately,” he said, adding that waters surrounding the archipelago were almost seven times bigger than its land area.
The team hopes to use data to influence policy-makers and stakeholders at the local and national levels: local government units could draft ordinances for better coastal protection while communities could practice more responsible use of marine resources.

“In the absence of scientists on the ground, the program hopes to give people tools where people can formulate their own [climate-change adaptation programs],” Samson said.

“These are site-specific. It's not possible that the whole Philippines will sink ... There will be different scenarios for [different parts of the] Philippines,” she added.

Source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20110204-318321/Scientists-find-creeping-effects-of-climate-change-in-Philippine-coastal-areas

Editorial: Crazy weather

(collage by the blogger)

In the past 12 and a half months great areas of the world have experienced extreme, crazy and topsy-turvy weather. Both the western and eastern worlds suffered a midsummer breakdown:

The hottest summer (more than 100 degrees F for the first time) in Russia, sparking wildfires and blanketing Moscow with toxic smog;

The heaviest monsoon rains in Pakistan, causing rivers to rampage over the countryside, flooding thousands of villages, killing 1,500 people and leaving 14 million homeless;

The worst floods in China in decades which, together with landslides, killed at least 1,100 people and left more than 600 missing;

The wettest midsummer (some call it "Nashville's `Katrina'") in Iowa in 127 years of record-keeping, floodwaters forcing hundreds from their homes;

The calving off from the great Petermann Glacier in Greenland's northwest of a 100-square-mile chunk of ice.

Winter in the West (the cold season in the East) has been especially harsh. A "Snowmaggeddon" has blanketed huge areas of the United States. From extreme, brain-cooking heat during the summer, the weather has turned to the other extreme, with record snowfalls being experienced in areas that usually saw mild, gentle winters in the past.

And the end is not yet in sight. In the first half of January devastating floods have hit Australia; a tsunami-like wall of water ripped through Queensland's Lockyer Valley, tossing cars like toys, lifting houses from their foundations, and displacing hundreds of thousands of people (very reminiscent of "Ondoy"!). Thousands of kilometers away, in Brazil, more than 500 people have died in mudslides near Rio de Janeiro. In the Philippines, heavy rains have lashed the Bicol region, the Visayas and Mindanao, killing scores of people, displacing hundreds of thousands and causing billions of pesos in damage to crops, public works and private property.

Why the freakish, crazy weather? Scientists are hotly debating the issue, but the great majority say that it is caused by global warming. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has long predicted that rising global temperatures would produce more frequent and intense heat waves and more intense rainfalls. The IPCC's most recent assessment report says, "It is now more likely than not that human activity has contributed to observed increases in heat waves, intense precipitation events and the intensity of tropical cyclones."

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has reported that 2010 was "the hottest meteorological year." For über-meteorologist Dr. Jess Masters of Weather Underground, 2010 was the year of living dangerously (insofar as the weather was concerned): "The stunning extremes we witnessed give me concern that our climate is showing early signs of instability."

Masters continued: "…I suspect that crazy weather years like 2010 will become the norm a decade from now, as the climate continues to adjust to the steady build-up of heat-trapping gasses we are pumping into the air… Forty years from now, the crazy weather of 2010 will seem pretty tame… This year's wild ride was just the beginning."

It was extremely fatal, destructive and frightening in many parts of the world, and yet, for a weather expert "it was just the beginning." Wild, wild 2010 should make all nations take more aggressive steps to try to control global warming. And everyone should contribute to the effort, from the poorest country to the richest, which are among those who are producing the greatest volume of greenhouse gases.

Governments and the private sector will have to study and adopt strong measures to control emissions; promote the use of human-friendly sources of power such as solar, wind, geothermal and ocean wave; curb deforestation; make rational land use plans; and resettle the poor who are always vulnerable on flood plains. Bold, aggressive measures have to be adopted, and the richer nations, which cause the most pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, have the moral obligation to provide funds to the poorer ones to help them cope with the problem.

We are now really seeing and experiencing "the dark side of climate change." Unless we begin solving the problem now, we will be condemning our children, and our children's children to a very harsh future, and probably, even to an early death.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer at http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/editorial/view/20110118-315066/Crazy-weather

2010: Global climate hotter, wettest

The new figures confirm that 2010 will go down as one of the more exceptional years in the annals of climatology. Last year saw prodigious snowstorms that broke seasonal records in the United States and Europe; a record-shattering summer heat wave that scorched Russia; strong floods that drove people from their homes in places like Pakistan, Australia, California and Tennessee; a severe die-off of coral reefs; and a continuation in the global trend of a warming climate.

Two US agencies—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—reported on Wednesday that the global average surface temperature for 2010 had tied the record set in 2005.

The analyses differ slightly: In the NOAA version, the 2010 temperature was 0.62 degree Celsius (1.12 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average for the 20th century, which is 14 degrees Celsius (57 Fahrenheit).

Climate experts have become increasingly concerned about rising global temperatures over the last century. A large majority of climatologists attribute global warming to industrial processes and gasoline-burning engines that release heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“The warmth this year reinforces the notion that we are seeing climate change,” said David Easterling, chief of scientific services at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

Warmest years

It was the 34th year running that global temperatures have been above the 20th century average; the last below-average year was 1976. More remarkable, 9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since the beginning of 2001.

Easterling said the temperature readings collected at land stations and from ships and buoys at sea “unequivocally” disproved claims that climate warming ended in 2005.

“If the warming trend continues, as is expected, if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the 2010 record will not stand for long,” said James Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Bob Ward at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science said the US data showed “that the Earth is warming and its temperature is at record levels.”

Last year’s data “also showed that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had reached 390 parts per million, its highest level for at least 800,000 years and almost 40 percent higher than the level before the start of the Industrial Revolution when humans started to burn fossil fuels in increasing amounts,” Ward said.

“The evidence is overwhelming that human activities are driving climate change,” he added.

Wettest year

Last year was also the wettest on record, according to NOAA which cited a report of the Global Historical Climatology Network that made the calculation based on global average precipitation.

A warmer atmosphere holds more water, which in general can result in more floods, Easterling explained.

The NOAA analysis tracked weather changes that contributed to massive floods in Pakistan and a heat wave in Russia, saying an “unusually strong jet stream” from June to August was to blame.

“The jet stream remained locked in place for weeks, bringing an unprecedented two-month heat wave to Russia and contributing to devastating floods in Pakistan at the end of July,” the agency said.

As various crops were scorched and countless farms were inundated, global food prices rose to record levels and threatened to lead to food riots like those seen in 2008.

When it came to hurricanes and storms, the Pacific Ocean saw the fewest number of hurricanes and named storms, three and seven respectively, since the 1960s.

Shrinking sea ice

But the Atlantic Ocean told a different story, with 12 hurricanes and 19 named storms, marking the second highest number of hurricanes on record and third highest for storms.

NASA analysts said the shrinking sea ice in the Arctic may have made winters in Europe and Canada warmer than usual.

“Winter weather patterns are notoriously chaotic, and the analysis finds seven of the last 10 European winters warmer than the average from 1951 to 1980,” NASA said in a statement.

“The unusual cold in the past two winters has caused scientists to begin to speculate about a potential connection to sea ice changes,” it said.

“Arctic sea ice acts like a blanket, insulating the atmosphere from the ocean’s heat. Take away that blanket, and the heat can escape into the atmosphere, increasing local surface temperatures. Regions in northeast Canada were several degrees warmer than normal in December.”

The United States was wetter and hotter last year than the average values for the 20th century, but overall the year was not as exceptional in this country as for the world as a whole.

Still, some remarkable events occurred at a regional scale, including snowstorms last February that shattered seasonal records in cities like Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia. In the summer, a heat wave broke records in the South and along much of the East Coast.

Future weather

The NASA and NOAA reports did not predict weather in the future.

But the UN climate science panel said the weather was likely to be more extreme this century because of a buildup of gases released by burning fossil fuels and forest destruction.

Jay Gulledge, the senior scientist at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said farmers and others may be able to adjust to expected warmer temperatures, but preparing for extreme weather would be harder.

“We’ve got really immense potential right now to have even bigger impacts from the direct effects of extreme events,” he said.

As the weather warmed, the world did not do enough to prevent future climate change, scientists said.

At the UN climate talks in Cancun late last year, nearly 200 countries agreed to set a target of limiting a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) over preindustrial times.

But promised emissions curbs by big polluters such as China and the United States are not enough to achieve that goal and tougher actions are needed, climate scientists said.

Paradox

Frigid winters in parts of Europe and the United States in 2010 may be a paradoxical side effect of climate change, some scientists said.

Rising temperatures mean a shrinking of sea ice in the Arctic, heating the region and pushing cold air southward during the winter, according to a study last month in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Warming of the air over the Barents and Kara seas, for instance, seems to bring cold winter winds to Europe.

“This is not what one would expect,” said Vladimir Petoukhov, lead author of the study and climate scientist at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “Whoever thinks that the shrinking of some far away sea-ice won’t bother him could be wrong.”

The release of the NOAA report itself was delayed one day by an unusually hard snowstorm in North Carolina.

“These anomalies could triple the probability of cold winter extremes in Europe and northern Asia,” Petoukhov said. “Recent severe winters like last year’s ... do not conflict with the global warming picture, but rather supplement it.” Reports from The New York Times, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer Online at http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20110114-314309/Global-climate-hotter-wettest

2010 Advanced Training Workshop on Southeast Asia Regional Health Impacts and Adaptation under Climate Change

Tribute to my group, Group 1, whose research proposal was judged as the best in the culminating activity of the 2010 Advanced Training Workshop on Southeast Asia Regional Health Impacts and Adaptation under Climate Change, held in Tainan City, Taiwan on Nov. 24-30, 2010. Our research proposal is entitled, “Impact Assessment of Climatic Disasters on Health: Case Studies on Selected Southeast Asian Countries.” It was evaluated and ranked by four public health experts and our co-participants. Shown in the picture, after the announcement of the winning group, are my groupmates, namely: Uma Langkulsen (Thailand), Norela Sulaiman (Malaysia), Ramzah Dambul (Malaysia), Hoa Pham Thi (Viet Nam), and me, Ebinezer Florano(Philippines). We are now looking for possible sources of funds to conduct it.

Community-Based Vulnerability Assessment for Climate Adaptation

By Vangie Padilla on Sep 25th, 2010
Source: PangalaTALK.com - Pangasinan's Finest News Source
http://www.pangalatalk.com/newscontent.php?ShowNews=409

A workshop on "Community-Based Vulnerability Assessment for Climate Change Adaptation" for the city was conducted last September 20 by undergraduate students in public administration of the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance (UP-NCPAG) at the Product Center in Poblacion Oeste here.

The workshop sought to draw up and share prevalent issues on climate change adaptation measures. Participants were appraised on various climate change-related disasters that have hit Dagupan for the last 30 years, including their types, frequencies, magnitudes, and damages. Department of the Interior and Local Government Officer Rhoderick Dawis provided the participants inputs on the frequency, magnitude and damages the city suffered from the 1990 earthquake, while City Health Officer Leonard Carbonell presented the climate change adaptation measures of Dagupan.

Based on the students’ output, Dagupan will be greatly vulnerable to great floods, earthquake and storm surges by the time the effect of global warming peaks ten years from now. Professor Ebinezer R. Florano, assistant professor of the UP NCPAG said, "People have the right to be informed on the possible ramifications of climate change to local situations especially on the people’s main source of livelihood here, the fishponds."

"The people need not be afraid but they have to be prepared," said Florano. In his message, City Administrator Vladimir T. Mata said for the program to succeed, "we need to change the mindset of our people so they will learn to accept the program." He cited the mayor’s main program anchored on his inaugural message that Dagupan is 'our city, our shared responsibility'," The city will be provided with a copy of the report on the workshop, which will be used in the city's risk estimation and valuation. (CIO – Joseph C. Bacani)

7 of 10 Filipinos Believe Climate Change Dangerous to Environment, Families - Survey

7 of 10 Pinoys believe climate change dangerous to environment, families - survey

Source: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=603478&publicationSubCategoryId=63
By Helen Flores and Amanda Fisher (The Philippine Star)
Updated August 17, 2010 12:00 AM Comments (6)


MANILA, Philippines - Seven of every 10 Filipinos acknowledge the dangers posed by climate change to the environment, with Metro Manila residents voicing the biggest concern, results of the latest Pulse Asia “Ulat ng Bayan” survey show.

According to the survey, the percentage of Filipinos who are worried about the dangers of climate change has gone up to 71 percent from 61 percent two years ago.

Pulse Asia also said the figure was a high 84 percent in Metro Manila, possibly because of tropical storm “Ondoy” last year which flooded most of the capital and killed close to 500 people.

It also attributed the rising awareness about climate change among Metro Manila’s 12 million residents to a drought this year that caused severe water shortage.

The same survey also showed that 21 percent of Filipinos believe God is punishing humans for their evil deeds by inflicting environmental catastrophes on them, although the figure is lower than the 23 percent recorded two years ago. The Philippines is predominantly Roman Catholic.

The survey was conducted from July 1 to 11 and involved interviews with 1,200 respondents.

Based on the survey, two in three Filipinos noticed a “big change” in the country’s climate over the past three years, and almost half said they had “little or no knowledge” of the climate change phenomenon.

The survey also found that 66 percent of Filipinos experienced a big change in climate in their places in the past three years.

On the other hand, 11 percent of respondents said there was little change in the climate in their areas during the period, while 23 percent were undecided on the matter. Public ambivalence was most pronounced in Mindanao (33 percent) and the least in Metro Manila (12 percent) and the Visayas (14 percent).

“Between July 2008 and July 2010, more Filipinos felt a big change in the climate in their place (+8 percentage points) while slightly fewer expressed ambivalence on the matter (-6 percentage points),” Pulse Asia said.

Almost 80 percent of Metro Manilans – the highest in the country – noted a big change in local climate. Metro Manila residents who claimed knowledge of climate change made up 63 percent, based on the survey.

In Mindanao, 52 percent of respondents have reported little or no knowledge of climate change. Similarly, the region had the smallest percentage of residents across the country that had noticed a big change in climate, at only 58 percent.

Meanwhile, two thirds of the respondents said recent weather-related calamities in the country and around the world were primarily the result of “human-induced environmental destruction.”

Sixty-three percent of survey respondents expressed belief that the various calamities that hit the Philippines and other countries in recent months had been the result of “humanity’s environmentally destructive ways.”

On the other hand, two in 10 Filipinos see these calamities as “God’s way of warning or punishing countries that have turned evil ways.”

Fourteen percent of respondents believe these calamities are only part of a process that naturally occurs worldwide.

The good news is more Filipinos are ready to take action, like recycling and segregating waste as well as planting trees. Up to 30 percent of those surveyed said they were willing to do more for the environment, such as educate others. However, 10 percent said they would not do anything more to protect the environment.

Pulse Asia describes climate change as “any long-term significant change in the average weather that a given region experiences.”

Asked to comment on the Pulse Asia survey, Science Undersecretary Graciano Yumul said there is a need to intensify the campaign to educate the public on climate change.

“What we are experiencing now is not ordinary. There are a lot of changes attributable to both man-induced climate change and natural variability. Enhanced information campaign understandable to our people about this issue needs to be done,” he said in text message to The STAR.

“We are in the midst of climate-related uncertain times,” Yumul added.

U.P. SYSTEM-WIDE FORUM ON "REDUCING RISKS AND DISASTERS DUE TO RAINFALL VARIABILITY"