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Climate taking heavy toll


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Climate taking heavy toll

By Pratch Rujivanarom 
The Nation

 

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Global warming is already causing release of methane from permafrost at the bottom of the lake in Alaska. Photo credits: Katey Walter Anthony/ University of Alaska Fairbanks

 

Catastrophes ahead if emission of greenhouse gases are not curbed: scientists
 

GLOBAL mass extinction from extreme climate change is imminent and we are certainly not ready for it, warn scientists.

 

The first half of this year has been a turbulent one, with many extreme, unusual and unpredictable climate disasters, which cost more than US$30 billion (Bt979 billion). However, the global intellectual community is warning that things could worsen if we fail to stop the rise of greenhouse gases. 

 

This year has been hit by some serious disasters, ranging from the powerful blizzard and cyclone that hit the United States’ Eastern Seaboard to the extreme heatwave in Europe. 

 

The impact of extreme weather is also being felt in Southeast Asia and Thailand, as storms and heavy rain this monsoon have inundated and caused dams to burst in many parts of the region. Yet, some provinces in Thailand’s Northeast are suffering from drought. 

 

Seri Suparathit, Rangsit University’s director of the Centre of Global Warming and Natural Disasters, said these extreme weather conditions were the result of climate change. 

 

“A hotter temperature is increasing the moisture in the atmosphere and contributing to more precipitation in many parts of the world. So this year’s flooding in the North, Northeast and West of Thailand has undoubtedly been caused by climate change,” Seri said.

 

“Climate change is also contributing to more arid weather in some parts of the world, which is why some provinces in the Northeast have remained dry this monsoon.” 

 

He also warned of more frequent and more severe hydrological disasters in the future, saying big floods like the one in 2011 or major drought of 2013 will recur in Thailand every decade instead of every 50 years. 

 

“Owing to changing weather conditions, Thailand will switch to a dry phase in the second half of this year, and this will continue until 2020,” he said. 

 

“According to estimates, a severe drought is expected during the dry season of 2020, so we have to plan our water management carefully and take preparatory measures beforehand.”

 

According to analysis conducted by German insurance firm Munich Re’s NatCatSERVICE, the first six months of this year has encountered approximately 430 natural disasters, which cost around $33 billion in financial losses and killed more than 3,000 people. 

 

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Petra Law, who oversees NatCatSERVICE, said losses in the first half of the year were principally caused by geophysical, meteorological, hydrological and climatological events, as data shows that meteorological disasters in the first six months of 2018 accounted for 76 per cent of all natural disasters. This is almost twice the average level of extreme weather events from 1980 to 2017.

 

However, scientists warned that the extreme weather conditions experienced in the first half of this year will be minuscule compared to the deadlier and irreversible catastrophes of the “Hothouse Earth” caused by continuous emission of greenhouse gases, which will trigger massive methane unleashed from permafrost and beneath the ocean.

 

According to the “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene” article published by PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the US), humanity could face massive, abrupt, and disruptive outcomes of a Hothouse Earth, unless greenhouse gases are stabilised and maintained in a global effort. 

 

The authors of this article warned that the socio-economic force of human society has already altered the climate system to conditions beyond the previous interglacial conditions, which is driving the world down the path of runaway climate change.

 

Earlier this month, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released the study on impacts of climate change on the Arctic by Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment Project, which found out that the fuse of climate time bomb has already ignited, as methane releases from thawing Arctic permafrost has been detected.

 

The study noted that despite the methane releasing rate was slow, but considering to the trajectory of the warming climate, large amount of methane is expected to release into atmosphere with much faster rate within a few decades and significantly heat up the global climate.

 

Louis Lebel, founding director of the Unit for Social and Environmental Research at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Chiang Mai University, also cautioned that mass extinction is a possible outcome of continued failure to arrest greenhouse gases emissions.

 

“Emissions to date have already committed us to a much warmer world for centuries to come – even if we were to bring them down to zero quickly. And there is really not much sign of that happening. I fear we are not ready for a post-carbon lifestyle yet,” Lebel said.

 

Currently, amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has already reached over 400 parts per million (ppm), surpassing the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration at 350 ppm, which will prevent the global temperature from rising over 1.5 degree Celsius and minimise the risk of triggering runaway climate change.

 

However, the human activities still continue to emiss CO2 still into the air and increase the annual growth rate CO2 concentration at 2.19 ppm per year.

 

This is the second report on the series "Change the Climate"

 

Here is the first report: Surge in coal use scuttling climate change efforts

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30353016

 
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-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-08-27
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12 minutes ago, webfact said:

“A hotter temperature is increasing the moisture in the atmosphere and contributing to more precipitation in many parts of the world. So this year’s flooding in the North, Northeast and West of Thailand has undoubtedly been caused by climate change,” Seri said.

Excuses, excuses. Now I know why this expedition happened. It didn't make too much sense to me when I first heard about it.

 

 

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21 minutes ago, webfact said:

“A hotter temperature is increasing the moisture in the atmosphere and contributing to more precipitation in many parts of the world

good beacsue for the last 5  years Prachuap has been very dry, thanks global warming..........oh im sorry i forgot we can only say bad, bad bad  global warming naughty flooding nasty weather and thus also "not the govts  fault" although i thought Canute said there would be no  flooding????????

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9 minutes ago, ukrules said:

Excuses, excuses. Now I know why this expedition happened. It didn't make too much sense to me when I first heard about it.

 

 

looks  like we both spotted the govt get out  clause at the same time hahahaha

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There are none so blind as those who will not see.

 

I first started visiting Koh Samui about twenty years ago, and I can already see variations in the annual weather here; you used to be able to set your watch to the beginning and end of the rainy season. Now, well, things are different. Before anyone says it, it is true that my observations aren't scientific, but only a fool ignores what is in front of their eyes.

 

Is climate science perfect and 100% accurate all the time? Nope.

 

Can the scientists predict with perfect accuracy what will happen in the future and when? Nope.

 

Is climate change occurring right before our very eyes? Yes, I believe it is.

 

Denying it will simply make things harder to fix later. Even if, despite all the science backing the notion, you believe that climate change is not happening, why would you want to risk that it is?

 

It is time for a change on how we as a species live on this ball of rock.

 

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22 minutes ago, Samui Bodoh said:

Even if, despite all the science backing the notion, you believe that climate change is not happening, why would you want to risk that it is?

 

The climate is always changing, always has been, always will be.

 

Ice ages come and go, etc, etc - between them there are temperate periods which are also not static.

 

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1 hour ago, ukrules said:

 

The climate is always changing, always has been, always will be.

 

Ice ages come and go, etc, etc - between them there are temperate periods which are also not static.

 

And for you to have noticed these natural changes in temperature within the span of a lifetime you would have had to have been  a hundred thousand years old or more, which I take it , you are not.  WAKE UP!

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1 hour ago, ukrules said:

The climate is always changing, always has been, always will be.

Ice ages come and go, etc, etc - between them there are temperate periods which are also not static.

 

10 minutes ago, Jeremy50 said:

And for you to have noticed these natural changes in temperature within the span of a lifetime you would have had to have been  a hundred thousand years old or more, which I take it , you are not.  WAKE UP!

I got the impression ukrules was stating a fact rather than relating his personal experience with climate change.

IMO, he's right, the earths climate is constantly going through change and weather patterns

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3 hours ago, webfact said:

Catastrophes ahead if emission of greenhouse gases are not curbed: scientists
 

GLOBAL mass extinction from extreme climate change is imminent and we are certainly not ready for it, warn scientists

Can you say "alarmist"?

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4 hours ago, webfact said:

The first half of this year has been a turbulent one, with many extreme, unusual and unpredictable climate disasters, which cost more than US$30 billion (Bt979 billion)

Weather systems do not equate to climate.  

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....doesn't explain the brown substance on their noses.....

 

...but at least they got this trip off their bucket list....???

 

...do your own research to discover what a fallacy this is....

 

...and the link to flooding in Thailand.....???

 

...instinctively you know it is not so....and historic flooding records disprove it as well....

 

...more poorly written fiction that many will accept as 'fact'...

 

...what a shame....

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No one is saying the climate has not changed before,it is the speed at which this is happening that is at the crux of this.

 Before things tended to happen slowly over hundreds of thousands of years,which gave species time to adapt and evolve,this is no longer the case as human activity has been the catalyst for much faster warming and show's no sign's of slowing to any meaningful degree[no pun intended] . Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than co2, not as long lived i grant,if you consider how much is locked up in the permafrost alone it is scary,let alone the deep ocean.

 I honestly think now that this has become a self perpetuating system of change,and very little if anything can be done to stop it.

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14 hours ago, webfact said:

GLOBAL mass extinction from extreme climate change is imminent and we are certainly not ready for it, warn scientists.

Lions and Tigers and Bears oh my!

But in the meantime, give your hard-earned money to Al Gore and friends who will be making billions from trading carbon credits. 

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