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Climate Change Debate Rises with Pakistan Floods
KARACHI, Pakistan - "If this is not God’s wrath, what is?" 40-year-old taxi driver Bakht Zada said of the massive floods in Pakistan that have swept away his life earnings.
Three weeks after unusually heavy rains began to pour on Jul. 12 – some areas received up to 300 millimetres in a 36-hour period – Pakistan’s floods have affected 14 million people and killed 1,600, apart from damaging huge swathes of agricultural land, the mainstay of the economy.
Speaking to IPS from Madyan city in Swat district in north-western Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province, Zada might pin the blame for Pakistan’s worst floods
in 80 years on forces beyond humankind, but environment experts are
debating whether they are linked to a much more earthly phenomenon –
climate change.
Three weeks after unusually heavy rains began to pour on Jul. 12 – some areas received up to 300 millimetres in a 36-hour period – Pakistan’s floods have affected 14 million people and killed 1,600, apart from damaging huge swathes of agricultural land, the mainstay of the economy.
The government, international humanitarian agencies and local charities
continue to grapple with the disaster, which first hit the north-western part
of this South Asian country and is now affecting the Punjab and Sindh
provinces. The United Nations has appealed for 459 million U.S. dollars, of
which 175 million dollars has been pledged.
Against this backdrop, experts have been trying to make sense of recent
instances of extreme weather phenomena. Apart from the floods here, floods
in China killed more than 1,100 people, and drought, a heat wave and
wildfires hit Russia, in signs that seem consistent with the warming of the
planet due to enormous amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like
carbon dioxide.
"Global warming results in catastrophic weather events. The recent floods
are a result of climate change, undoubtedly," insisted Simi Kamal, a
geographer and water specialist.
"Above-normal temperatures in the Indian Ocean give rise to increased
precipitation. And in the north of Pakistan, when moisture-riddled wind
currents collide with the mountains and are pushed up into cooler altitudes,
moisture is released in the form of cloud bursts," added Khalid Rashid, a
mathematician and physicist who studies changes in global weather patterns.
"This is what seems to have happened this year."
Others are cautious about making categorical conclusions about links to
climate change, but agree that weather patterns have been changing,
becoming more extreme and more unpredictable.
"Climate scientists cannot be certain whether the current floods are an
extreme weather event of the current climate pattern or a change in it," said
Ayub Qutub, an Islamabad-based specialist on water management.
Even R K Pachauri, chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), says it would be scientifically incorrect to link any single set of events
with human-induced climate change. But he agrees that there is enough
evidence to show an increase in the frequency and intensity of floods,
droughts and extreme precipitation events worldwide.
In fact, he told IPS: "The floods of the kind that hit Pakistan may become
more frequent and more intense in the future in this and other parts of the
world."
Danish Mustafa, a Pakistani water specialist who teaches geography at the
King’s College in London, acknowledges that "rather unusual" monsoon
patterns from the Arabian Sea are becoming more frequent.
Ejaz Ahmad, deputy director of the World Wildlife Fund Pakistan, links
weather changes to "change in land use patterns, heavy deforestation in the
northern part of Pakistan and the conflicts" rather than to climate change.
Still, he agrees that there have been more "weird" weather events of late.
"Pakistan experienced a dry spell last March with hardly any rainfall and
wheat production was seriously damaged. Then it rained in areas which do
not come under the monsoon range such as Gilgit-Baltistan, Broghil,.
Similarly, the frequency of cyclones has also increased," Ahmad explained. "A
year ago we received the Yemyin cyclone and then this year we had the Phet
cyclone. In the past, we would experience cyclones (only) in decades."
Kamala adds that rising temperatures help hasten the melting of water
sources like the Himalayas, north of Pakistan, that are the world’s third
largest repository of snow and ice. "Our region (South Asia) is among the
climate change hotspots, and floods and droughts had been predicted by
international experts," he pointed out.
Originating in the Tibetan plateau, the Himalayas also feeds the Indus River
basin after turning south from India. The river, now swollen because of the
floods, runs along Pakistan’s entire length before discharging into the
Arabian Sea, a journey of some 3,180 kilometres.
"Global warming is going much faster, causing catastrophic weather
events," explained Kamal. "I’m not sure if this can be stopped now. I’m not
even sure if we can adapt to the change as quickly."
Already, Kamal says, Pakistan’s lack of preparedness has added to the toll
of the floods. The Indus basin has always been prone to floods, prompting
her to to ask: "Why are we always taken by surprise? Why don’t we build
scenarios, and based on them plan ahead for floods?"
But Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman of the United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Islamabad, says some
preparations were put in place by the Pakistani government or "the toll would
have been much higher."
Still, there are lessons to be learned. "We need the telemetric system on the
Indus rivers to function that also need to be extended to monitor flood waves
in real time," suggestsed Mustafa. "The local-level capacity will have to be
strengthened to be the first line of defence in providing flood protection and
then relief. The distant central government cannot do it."
Comments
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16 Comments so far
Show AllThe event itself could be put down to El Nino, in part. But the unusual severity of it is the fingerprint of Climate Change. The warmer atmosphere is just that much more capable of holding water, and then releasing it all at once.
What debate? Both Global Warming and its child Climate Change are facts. 2010 will be the hottest year on record. And while the floods displace millions, the Barbaric US Empire still wages its illegal war on Pakistanis.
KARLOF: I'd like to respond to your post with 2 references.
First, I have a friend who lives in the Florida Keys who is somewhat delighted that many still don't get it about climate change. She figures due to this, she'll still be able to sell her canal-front property for a sexy price.
The other point is that it's ultimately rather fortunate that people in Pakistan don't necessarily connect the human (activities) to climate (change) dots. If they did, they'd have to recognize that the U.S. uses far more than its proportional share of all sorts of resources, including those fossil fuels most apt to bear upon global weather changes. What's not being destroyed directly with bombs and a bombastic foreign policy (towards Arab lands in coincidental proximity to oil) is being destroyed indirectly by resource usage patterns direct from the USA. If this connection was understood, sooner or later karmic blowback would be assisted by those who've felt the sting of American derelict consumerism in the form of losing all they've got, wild weather assisted.
"Three weeks after unusually heavy rains began to pour on Jul. 12 – some areas received up to 300 millimetres in a 36-hour period...
300 mm (12 inches) in a 36 hour period is not that heavy a rain. With the pictures of the flooding I've seen the rainfall must have been a lot heaver than that..
Right. There must be some sort of error in reporting. I calculate 300 millimeters as bit less than 12 inches. Anybody know what is correct? Or is the soil so impermeable that it's all run-off? That could make things worse.
THERE IS NO DEBATE! There is scientific evidence that the record temparutes and extreme weather events are directly linked to climate change. We have to STOP DEBATING and START DOING SOMETHING to stop climate change. NOW!
Look: Even the U.S. Government knows the truth--http://epa.gov/climatechange/effects/extreme.html
CLIIMATE MITIGATION NOW--NO OPTIONS
The energy cartel's recent success in coercing our senate leader into suspening vital environmental reform measures, is another setback our planet cannot afford as environmental decay and its consequences intensify--and as remediation becomes more difficult. Meanwhile our non compliance is generating world wide animosity and widenining the divide between nations most responsible for warming and those most affected by it.
Conditions can only worsen until the renagade legislators, who have blocked these reforms for their special interest supporters, are neutralized through coercion from their peers and a more aggressive president--and especially a better informed and energized populace that will not be misled by the fabricated science and character assinations used against the scientific community.
My friend in Missouri was lucky enough to purchase an old country church and its' contents recently. It came with a loft full of old hymnals and Bibles. He's invited everyone he cares about to come down before The Deluge strikes. His plan is quite ingeneous: we stand on the songbooks to ward off the rising floodwaters and hold the Bibles over our heads to prevent more brain damage when it all comes crashiing down on us. We are thinking nat'l franchise at this point. In America people love to make a buck off of other people's misery. Can I get an Amen, brother and sisters?
Thanks, I appreciate your drollery. By the way, did you know that the world record hailstone fell in Bangladesh and weighted 2.25 pounds? Recently many similar sized hailstones fell on a small town in South Dakota, damaging the roofs of every home in town.
You Bible idea isn't too far off the mark.
Hail! Hail! Everywhere, but in some places not a drop of water to drink. Some say the earth will end in fire, some say in ice.
WOW - this must be a record at CD!
8 posts on an article on a weather-related disaster... and NO ONE yet has accused HAARP/Weather Terrorists/US Gubmint goons with ionizing antennae on their heads... or Tesla... returning from the grave, for the incidents.
Where are all the loonies today???
seems I may have spoken too soon!
Amen brother...
As this first comment here in front of me states 'event itself could be put down to El Nino' is more true than the changing climate. For my area, the past year was extremely wet and stormy, now, since the advent of summer or in late may or early june, it is extremely hot and dry. Definitely a characteristic of the ENSO bouncing ball. With El Nino, just about everyone gets a turn and who knows, maybe next year it will be mild again or maybe this is just the beginning of several years or decades of punishing weather.
While the debate rages on about the causes of global warming and climate change, most acknowledge that ocean temperatures are rising. Most agree that a two degree change in water temperature will occur in equatorial waters.
When water temperatures rise, land temperatures experience greater increases and more evaporation occurs. This means more rainfall in equatorial regions (hurricanes/typhoons).
More importantly increased precipitation means more dry air in Hadley Cells, resulting in expansion of deserts in now marginal areas (i.e. the American Grain Belts).
With an expansion of Hadley Cells, you end up with decreased snow fall in mid latitude mountains (Rockies, Sierra, Himalayas and Alps). The impact on irrigated agriculture will be profound. The Imperial Valley in California (25% of US agricultural production), the grain production areas of the Great Plains, the irrigated grain production areas of China, and much of the Mediterranean (i.e.Egypt) will suffer.
In a possible scenario, several hundred million Chinese will die. Bangladesh will cease to exist due to increased rainfall and tidal surges, several billion people in Africa, India and Central America will cease to exist. There will be tremendous pressure on China to expand into Siberia, which will become a major production area.
A first step in this process is the increased need for waters from the Himalayas. Snowfall may decrease or warming may result in rapid glacial melt. Since new snow melts faster and is less dense than old snow (glaciers), melt will occur faster.
What this all means, is less water for China, India and Pakistan. Since China controls Tibet and the water of India and Pakistan, China's choice to feed its own starving populations will deprive India and Pakistan of water.
The human effects of slight global warming must take precedence. The above scenario is not from concerned scientists, it is from retired generals and admirals (US) who erred on the conservative side.
Yes, short-term effects will occur through short-term phenomena such as El Nino. The floods in Pakistan may be short-term. The human cost is tragic.
Given that the Himalayas and other ranges in Central Asia provide water to more than a third of the world's population, we must consider this a wake-up call. Even modest climate change in this part of the world will affect China, India, Pakistan and Russia. All are nuclear powers who will be facing major threats to their populations..
Much of this scenario may occur over the next thirty to forty years. Unfortunately the estimates keep moving up and the problem is coming at us faster than solutions.
The situation in Pakistan is horrific. It should be a wake up call to look at the human consequences of even modest global warming (man-made or other).
Wake-Up
" Zada might pin the blame for Pakistan’s worst floods in 80 years "
80 years???? Well, no... :
"6 Aug 2010 ... BBC's Adam Mynott:
'It's a catastrophe... and that's no overstatement'. The worst floods in Pakistan's history have hit at least 14 million ...
www.bbc.co.uk/news"
So why the 80 years? Why not 'ever' ?
~