Record heat waves to occur every other year - study

MANILA, Philippines - Record hot days and heat waves will occur every two years with the changing climate patterns, according to a study assisted by the United Nations.

Climate physicist Thomas Stocker said that since the 1950s, record-breaking daily temperatures and heat waves have become more frequent or lasted longer.

“The hottest day, which today occurs once every 20 years, is expected to occur once every second year by the end of the 21st century,” he said.

Stocker said in the UN-assisted report of Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that man-made global-warming gases are already affecting some types of extreme weather.

“Weather events once deemed a freak are likely to become more frequent or more vicious, inflicting a potentially high toll in deaths, economic damage and misery,” the report said.

The scenario is based on the assumption that today’s high emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated.

Extreme rainstorms have intensified over past decades and are likely to become more frequent in this century, although with big differences between regions, the report said.

Southern Europe and West Africa have already experienced bigger or longer droughts.

In this century, Central Europe, central North America, Central America and Mexico, northeast Brazil and southern Africa could follow suit.

Whether hurricanes or typhoons have changed in intensity, frequency and duration over the past 40 years is hard to gauge.

Warmer seas suggest these storms will pack a higher wind speed, yet may also become less frequent.

“There is disaster risk almost everywhere, in the world’s developed regions, as well as in developing regions, in areas where the problem is too much water and in areas where the problem is too little water and in areas where the problem is high sea level,” Chris Field, one of the 592-page report’s lead authors, said.

The report pointed out areas that are particularly vulnerable, and that includes large cities in developing countries, coastal areas like small island states, and much of the world that is chronically short of water resources.

The report said coastal megacities were particularly vulnerable.

A rise of 50 centimeters (20 inches) in sea level would make much of the coastal and low-lying areas of Mumbai in India, where slums proliferate, uninhabitable.

The cities of Manila, Malabon and Navotas had also been ranked among the cities that rising sea levels would affect.

Two hundred twenty scientists and economists from 62 countries contributed to the report.

Experts and governments submitted their draft to external review, drawing nearly 19,000 comments in three rounds of consultation.

Based on a World Bank report, the Philippines is ranked eighth among the countries most exposed to multiple hazards, and ranked 13th among those at high economic risk to natural disasters, with at least 85 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in areas at risk.

Over the past two decades, damage incurred has reached P19.7 billion (approximately $500 million), equivalent to 0.5 percent of GDP.

Damage to the agricultural sector alone averaged P12.4 billion per annum.

In December 2011, tropical storm “Sendong” triggered flashfloods and mudslides that claimed the lives of more than a thousand people in Northern Mindanao and destroyed crops and properties.

In 2009, typhoon “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” unleashed massive floods in Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon, affecting 9.3 million people and causing the deaths of close to a thousand.

Total damage and losses reached more than $4 billion or 2.7 percent of GDP.

Many residents in poor communities that Ondoy and Pepeng had affected in 2009 are still struggling to recover due to lack of assets and working capital to restore their livelihood lost to the floods.

This is one of the key findings of a qualitative study that the Institute of Philippine Culture (IPC) at the Ateneo de Manila University had completed recently.

The study said since 2009, these communities reported overall reduction in incomes due to loss of assets and working capital.

Affected residents’ assets, savings and working capital for livelihood activities were dissipated as they had to spend more for basic needs including food, water, and medicines as well as rebuilding their houses and shops damaged by the raging floodwaters.

“Wage workers primarily in urban areas may have recovered fully,” the study said.

“But for farmers, fishers, small business owners, and informal sector workers, the disasters have long-term impacts.”

Some disaster victims who used to have farms or own small businesses ended up taking less profitable and less secure occupations like vending and construction work.

The study titled “The Social Impact of Tropical Storm Ondoy and Typhoon Pepeng” probed into the long-term effects of the twin disasters that hit the country in 2009.

“The availability of working capital is the key missing element in recovery efforts,” the study said.

The study was supported by a trust fund from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) administered by the World Bank.