Typhoon Nanmatol has hit Japan this weekend and could become the biggest typhoon the country has seen in 70 years. This is the latest in a series of extreme weather events this summer.
– What we are seeing now is unique. It was announced, but what we consider serious is now the new normal.
Kiki Flesch Kleven, director of the Bjergnes Climate Research Center in Bergen, has traveled to a conference with climate scientists from around the world.
England recently recorded 40 degrees Scientists say that could not have happened Without global warming.
According to Cleaven, his British colleagues have made it clear that this is the achievement they hope for when the world passes 1.5 degrees of temperature increase between 2030 and 2050.
But not now.
– It’s amazing and scary, I would say. As we move towards a two degree warmer world, what will we experience in southern Norway, not far from England? asks Cleaven.
the world Last year it was already 1.11 degrees warmer.
The European Union’s climate monitoring service said this summer was Europe’s hottest on record. This is the third year in a row that this record has been achieved.
– It worries me that the UK is not equipped for this kind of heat wave. We see climate as a crisis multiplier – now you have war, prolonged drought, energy crisis and sky-high prices, and then comes a heat wave.
But Europe isn’t the only one overheating.
A wave of heat spread around him like a suffocating blanket. It started in May and June in the Middle East, India and Japan. In July, it hit China very hard, possibly the most intense heat wave ever recorded on the planet. Then it slipped up to Africa and Europe.
Then followed a singularity Severe drought on three continents at once. Climate scientists stood back in surprise. Did this really happen?
– In addition, the strength of the heat wave and the drought surprised me and others, says Tore Furevik, director of the Nansen Center and professor at the University of Bergen.
– What does that tell you?
– It says climate models fail to capture the most extreme results.
– What’s next?
– Unpredictable. But I can say with certainty that there will be no less extreme weather in the near future. There will be more. There will be even stronger heat waves than we’ve seen this year, and heavier rains. Unfortunately, says Furevik.
– Is everything happening so fast that climate scientists have to rewrite your models?
– We have to take into account that things can be worse than the models say. Extreme will become the new normal, but at the same time it will not become normal – because everything will get progressively worse until greenhouse gas emissions go to zero.
– Is it brutal?
– Yes. That’s it. The outlook is a bit bleak, but I am optimistic. The world can become 100 percent self-sufficient in renewable energy. We can solve this because it is a man-made situation, replies the professor.
Norway is one of the luckiest World class. Because we live so far north, we don’t get the extreme effects of heat or drought.
Scientists expect us to have warmer and wetter weather with drier weather. The drought in southern Norway this summer has surprised researchers, says Bjorn Hallvart Samset of the Cicero Center for Climate Research.
– We still don’t know why, whether it’s a climate effect or natural variation. But southern Norway has been much drier than climate models have predicted many times in recent years, Samset says.
He is one of the main authors behind the UN Climate Panel’s recent landmark report.
– An insidious thing we see is that the seasons are changing and the permafrost is melting in the north. It will not affect us on a daily basis, but will slowly but surely change Norwegian society.
In concrete terms, climate change means many people in the lowlands will lose their ski season.
– It is a small loss compared to Pakistan, but it affects us.
Increased heat and drought are devastating in themselves, but they also intensify some of the dramatic disasters that characterize the news.
First came heat and drought, then floods in Pakistan.
– I can’t imagine A third of Pakistan will end up under water, says Cicero’s senior researcher Samset.
He’s actually shocked at how vulnerable society is to extreme weather, rather than the weather itself.
– Summer this year brought us an awakening. When the extreme weather first hits, Samset says, it’s more extreme than we imagined.
According to a senior researcher, we are yet to see the full extent of the floods in Pakistan. A great flood is a crowning example of how many weather events converge:
The water in the ground evaporates due to heat. That water vapor must eventually come back down, but dry soil is less able to remove large amounts of water.
– Rainfall preceded a very strong heat wave, and much of the soil was hard. Samset says the water is not flowing anywhere.
Further north, the glaciers in the Himalayas are melting faster than ever. Pakistan got water from all sides at once.
Climate scientists are skeptical Pointing to individual incidents and saying “this is happening because of global warming” without conclusive research.
Pakistan’s climate minister has already come out and hinted that the country is facing disaster from emitting greenhouse gases in the Western world.
– What they point out is important, climate change has existential consequences for some people. The victims are often not the ones who contributed so much to the emissions. Siri Erickson says it’s important to keep it with you when countries gather for climate talks later this year.
The professor of climate and development at the Norwegian University of Environmental and Biological Sciences (NMBU) is also one of the main authors of the UN Climate Panel’s latest key report.
All extreme weather events clearly show people that climate change is happening now, Erickson says. Not in a few years, but here and now.
– We know this, but we have more research and clear findings that show that the pace is going faster than we thought a few years ago, Erickson continues.
Forest fires are not new in Australia, Southern Europe and America. But the countries were able to prepare in advance.
– No more fire season in California. Now it will burn year-round, says climate researcher Bjorn Hallvart Samset.
According to the UN’s climate panel, there is more “fire weather” than ever before. Fires are moving to new areas, populated areas, and areas not considered dangerous.
Four years ago, vacationing Greeks left Greece in flames. Suddenly the places where Greeks went to escape the heat of the cities became the center of a terrible tragedy. The families never made it to sea, and when they were found they clung to each other.
The following year, a wildfire season began in eastern Australia that lasted eight months. Fire-damaged and dehydrated koalas Turning to humans for water and help became a symbol of perhaps three billion animals killed or injured.
Millions of people on the Japanese island of Kyushu were warned to evacuate before Typhoon Nanmadol made landfall on Sunday.
A super alert has been issued for the first time on the island of 13 million people, the BBC reported. The typhoon could be the biggest storm Japan has seen in 70 years, and it is moving through an area unaccustomed to typhoons.
A tornado and a hurricane are the same weather phenomenon, but they have different names depending on where in the world they occur. Both are hurricanes above a certain strength. Tropical cyclones, also known as typhoons, affect both poor and wealthy communities in coastal regions around the Pacific Ocean.
Climate scientist Kiki Klevan says they hit where many people live.
– Hurricanes are getting worse. Not because they outnumber them, but because stronger factions get stronger. “We’ll get versions that we don’t currently have,” says Cleaven.
These extreme weather events are dramatic and dominate the news. Other big changes happen quietly, like the melting of glaciers and the movement of animal species to find cooler areas.
Siri Erickson says there is still time.
– Both emissions reductions and adaptations have a huge impact on what we do now and what kind of future we get in the future and in this decade. So, in a sense, we now have a much greater purpose and responsibility.
– What do you think we should think about this?
– I think this is a signal that we need to change and change as a sustainable society. This is a signal that changes are needed, and a signal that the longer we wait for politicians, the more difficult it will become.
According to Erikson we need to do two things at once – both reduce emissions and prepare for a future with greater climate risk.
– We must adapt, because changes are already happening. At the same time, we need to reduce warming by reducing our emissions because we are unable to adapt to the problems.
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