Published on: Thursday, November 06, 2008 |
Kota Kinabalu: There are distinct, measurable signs and actual events of global warming in Malaysia and Sabah, according to Prof. Dr Felix Tongkul, Centre for Natural Disaster Studies, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS). "Consistent with changes in the other parts of the world, surface temperature in most areas in Malaysia has been showing an upward trend since the last four decades at rate 2.7 to 4 degrees centigrade per hundred years," said Prof. Tongkul.
"There is also an upward trend in both annual and seasonal rainfall associated with an increasing trend in maximum daily rainfall," he noted.
"The maximum length of dry spell also shows an upward trend," he said at the seminar on Modelling of Climate Change and Its Impact on Vegetation at the UMS.
Climate change has hit Malaysia quite hard by intensifying the monsoons and storms, he said. He cited the two dominant monsoons - the northeast and the southwest monsoons. This is manifested in a "high level of precipitation and associated flooding in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah too in 2006 and 2007, Prof. Tongkul said.
"This climate change is thought to have caused the abnormal monsoon in 2006 and have contributed to the extreme weather events responsible for some major natural disasters experienced in Malaysia."
In Sabah, he cited Storm Greg which caused havoc across the State in 1996 but particularly tragic in Keningau when hundreds were swept to their death by a sudden furious midnight river flooding on Christmas eve.
At the other extreme were protracted droughts and mega forest infernos, he said. "Lack of precipitation and associated drought and forest fires in Sabah in 1983 and 1998."
Scientists look for detectable and measurable evidence.
So, what's happening in the climate change front?
"There are already things that can be measured like increase in temperature for example and increase in rainfall not yet but the events are more irregular," said Dr Michael Fischer, Chief Technical Advisor of the German Society of Technical Cooperation - main financier of the Malaysian-German Forestry Education Project.
"We have more and more extreme events and these extreme events are more frequent and they become more extreme that leads to more and more flooding, be it here in the tropics as well as in Germany where we come from," Dr Fischer asserted.
"In Germany, we have century flooding. Now we have century flooding every five years!"
"So things are changing, mainly the extremes," Dr Fischer said.
"I noted Dr Tongkul's presentation about severe flooding in Peninsular Malaysia that did not happen before in this strength," he said.
The whole focus of the seminar was on climate change and its impact on vegetation.
But what has Dr Fischer got to say on a somewhat anti-climatic remark uttered in closing by UMS Vice Chancellor Prof. Datuk Dr Karamuzaman that the impact of Climate Change on vegetation (in Sabah?) remains "vague" ?
Fischer agrees it is not detectable yet in Sabah but Germany is seeing "problems" already.
One reason why Germans feel more pressing about the issue.
But the contrasting observation actually open up a smart idea on where to look first for evidence and study the issue, that is, damage tends to start at more sensitive environments - glaciers, temperate forests, high places, etc.
In other words, the beginning and the end.
Where the starting premise is right, the conclusion is likely to follow suit - a basic tenet in logic.
In other words, tropical men must never sit back and think retreating glaciers in the Himalayas or the Andes will not eventually make its final impact on Sabah. It will be just a matter of when.
"That means our main species spruce cannot grow any more in some of the driest areas and so we are getting problems."
"Spruce will be affected when it is weakened by a bark beetle because of the dry conditions. So there are already observations of vegetative changes," Dr Fischer said.
