Climate Change
What does it mean to You?
Have you heard about the golden
age when there were no
typhoons, great earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions in the
Philippines?
Have you heard what shall happen in
the future in the Philippines?
More and greater typhoons, sea level
raising about 1 – 2 meters and hot
climate.
WE shall examine these topics today!
Typhoons
Both Tropical Storm Fengshen and Tropical Storm Fung-Wong can
be seen nearing China in this rare true color image taken on July
26, 2002, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS), flying aboard NASA?s Terra spacecraft. From NASA Earth
How the Philippines is affected
Tracks of all tropical cyclones in the north west Pacific Ocean
between 1980 and 2005. The vertical line to the right is the
International Date Line.
Philippines only
From a scientific article: Interdecadal variability of tropical cyclone
landfall in the Philippines from 1902 to 2005
Published in GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36
Philippine problem
Always the same in the
Philippines. Typhoons are
always coming and you can just
adapt to it. If you would like to
live in the Philippines and not
experience a lot of typhoons
move to Zamboanga.
Statistics from the West Pacific ocean
From Philippine official sources
Typhoons in The world
World statistics of cyclones
Accumulated energy in the hurricanes
Close to Scandinavia and Sweden
Sea level increase
since the last ice age
During the ice age the ice area was
3 times as large compared with
today. The volume was about 2,5
times bigger. When it melted with
the highest speed the sea level
rose with 1 – 2 meters/100 years.
That rate of melting is impossible
today.
How was it 1000 years ago?
Vikings
During the last 100 years the sea level has
increased about 20 cm and that is a lot of
water. The sea surface is 70 % of the earth.
High up in the Arctic
Bangladesh
Sometimes we hear that some countries are inundated by the water like
Bangladesh and the islands of South Pacific.
How is it in reality?
Let’s first look on Bangladesh a delta landscape, a very flat land. Compare the
blue and red colors.
Coastland of Bangladesh
Bangladesh is growing every year.
How about the low lying islands in the
Pacific?
Many have said that these islands
will be covered by the ocean in the
future.
How is it at the moment?
A scientific study last year showed
that many islands are growing in
size in spite of the sea level rise.
Why?
Because of this fish, the parrotfish.
This fish eats the corals and spits
out the coral fragments and thus
one fish makes 90 kg of sands
each year. The waves are
transporting it to the beach and the
island is growing. But if you are
taking up the sand for house
building maybe the waves will
erode the beach more instead.
Temperature rise
How much have you heard about the ice age? Three times
as much ice it is now. Why did it end?
The globe during the last ice age
How was the Philippines during the
ice age?
Larger land area!
Other parts of the world
•Himalayas and South America had more ice
•Sea level 120 m lower.
•Tropical rainforest smaller.
•Tropical areas were 3 – 4 degrees colder.
•Deserts were larger.
•Australia was dryer
Temperature during 450 000 years
Every ice age was more than 100 000
years.
Varm periods called Interglacials were
mostly short periods 10 000 – 30 000
years.
Today we have lived about 10 000
years in a warm period and in the future
will have another ice age.
Temperature after the great ice age. Reconstructed
from the big Greenland ice sheet. The ice remembers
the temperature.
Temperature during the last hundred
years.
Philippine temperature statistics
Manila temperature
Swedish temperature, a comparison
Longest temperature in Sweden
Conclusion 1
The climate has always been
changing. We must adapt to
it.
Conclusion 2
Decrease the greenhouse
gasses from our society. For
example use natural gas
instead of coal when heating
or producing energy.