Victims of global warming?

Published on: Sunday, September 12, 2021

By: Kan Yaw Chong

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Raging flood waters carrying a car past town in Europe.

WAS THE extra power of global warming behind the Myvi tragedy that left Sabahans who watched the viral footage in horror as torrents floundered the car like a cardboard box into the Sinulihan River, Kionsom, on September 3?

Driver Simon Sanga Tupe, 68, and passenger Juning Maturun, 37, both died.

No one should be surprised they are probably victims of global warming which caused the huge deluge and the furious torrents which easily swept the Myvi off the low lying bridge.

Famed climate scientist Prof James Hanson, whom we feature here, says Earth is gaining heat energy at a rate equal to “exploding 400,000 Hiroshima-size atomic bomb every day 365 days per year!”

That’s how the weather is getting hotter and hotter every day.

Warmer air not only increases evaporation but also can hold more water vapour thus greater downpours.

Hanson says so:

“Because warmer air holds more water vapour with its latent energy rainfall will become more extreme events. There will be stronger storms and greater flooding.”

When even the skies are getting ‘power crazy’

Sabahans and politicians alike don’t talk about global warming. They are largely uninterested, care little or none about it.

But it’s time to know that even our skies are getting “power crazy” and is driving our once conducive weather nuts!

It’s time to harbour no illusion and delusion about rain in due season.

The deluge and floods are expected to get worse not better, claim more victims and damages.

Prof Hanson: ‘Earth gaining enormous extra heat energy every day’

Prof James Hanson, a master physicist, a mathematics wizard and a former Nasa Director of Space Science who fought for government energy policy change, once asked: “What would you do if you know what I know?” he posed in a packed Ted Talk entitled “Why I must speak up about climate change”.

Suddenly he realised understanding is one thing, making it clear to the world is another.

His cited complaints from his own children: “Yes, Pa understands what was happening but he didn’t make it clear.”

So he decided to go public – testified to the Congress and even spoke to the President’s Task Force on Climate Change but alas, “energy policies continued on finding more fossil fuels.”

No remorse, no sign of contrition. Hence, it is and it will be business as usual.

So, in one explosive statement, Hanson indicts with one of the clearest metaphoric image I have ever heard which nobody can miss on the diabolic amount of deadly power this fossil-fuel obsessed energy world is spewing away – raising Earth’s heat energy by an equivalence of “exploding 400,000 Hiroshima-size atomic bombs every day, 365 days per year!”

“That’s how much extra heat energy Earth is gaining each day,” Hanson pointed out.

Any hope of stabilising the gross imbalance that is tormenting the world now?

Massive energy imbalance and flood havoc worldwide

“This imbalance, if you want to stabilise climate change it means we must reduce CO2 from 390 PPM parts per million to 350PPM to restore energy balance and prevent further warming.”

This massive heat energy imbalance is fuelling record rain storms, record floods, record drought, record heat waves across Europe and in Central China last July, drowning hundreds, destroying uncountable properties and houses.

Given such non-stop gargantuan of heat energy power released to the atmosphere, oceans and even earth’s top crusts, small wonder Kota Kinabalu, much of Sabah is more frequently going deeper and deeper under, flooding where it used to be above board.

Scientists are shy to attribute specific events like the Myvi case to global warming. But the trend is clear.

China

On July 23, record rains devastated China’s Central Province Henan.

Eight inches or 20cm of rain pelted Capital Zhen Zhou in one hour, 24 inches or 61cm or a year’s worth of rainfall in three days.

The Department of Water Resources labelled it “once in a 1000-year rainfall” and in some stations, a “once in 5,000-year rain levels”.

Passengers trapped in subway trains drowned.

Europe

Reports from Europe claim “entire towns washed away, as many as 1,300 people unaccounted for” while “thousands made homeless after houses destroyed” or “German towns hit by catastrophic floods after record rainfalls” or “flood water stream through towns in Belgium forcing residents to evacuate”.

These are tragedies, sorrows and losses afflicting the whole world now.

The tragedy of a simple honest approach denied

But noted Prof Hanson:

“The tragedy about climate change is that we can solve it with the simple honest approach.”

However, for telling the truth, Prof Hanson complained he was gagged, censored, his testimony allegedly altered by, of all places, the White House and even Nasa Mission Statement “To understand and protect Home Planet” which he used to justify speaking up, was deleted, he claimed.

But certainly Prof Hanson is one of the best gurus or physicists who knows how to use layman’s language to make global warming clear.

Particularly valuable is his calculations on the Green House Gas effect here on Earth.

A professor dedicated to make physics of climate change clear

While working at Nasa, he became very involved in researching on the physics of climate change.

“Let me describe the most important conclusion from the Physics,” he said.

“First, from Earth’s Energy Balance.”

“Adding CO2 to the air is like throwing another blanket on bed. It reduces Earth’s heat radiation to space so there is a temporary energy imbalance, more energy is coming in than going out, until earth’s warms up enough to again radiate to space as much energy as it absorbs from the sun.”

“So the key quantity is Earth’s Energy Imbalance, if there are more energy coming in than going out.”

“If so, more and more warming is in the pipeline, it will occur, without adding any more green house gas.”

Finally, a precise measurement of energy imbalance

“Now finally we can measure Earth’s energy imbalance precisely by measuring the content in earth’s heat reservoirs,” Prof Hanson noted.

“The biggest reservoir – the ocean, was the least well measured, until more than 3,000 robotic Agro floats were distributed around the world’s oceans.”

Oceans are the largest collector of solar energy on Earth.

Not only they cover 70pc of planet’s surface, they can also absorb large amount of heat without large increases in temperature.

This tremendous ability to absorb and release heat over long periods of time gives oceans a central role in Earth’s climate systems.

3,000 Agro floats reveal why ice in poles are melting

In 1999, the Agro Float programme was developed.

The 3,000 sensors drift through inside oceans at different depths, every 10 days or so, the instruments were programmed to rise through the water recording temperature as they ascend.

When they reach the surface, the floats send location and other data to scientists via satellites and descend again.

What did Prof Hanson know from these measurements?

“These floats revealed that the upper half of the oceans is gaining heat at a substantial rate while the deeper ocean is also gaining heat at a smaller rate and energy is going into the net melting of ice all around the planet and the land to the depths of tens of metres is also warming,” Prof Hanson noted.

Here, Prof Hanson reveals the mechanism on how ice in poles like Antarctica and Green Land are losing ice at about 350 billion tons per year and raising sea level by 11.1mm per year.

What happens when the 7,000ft thick Antarctica ice melt?

The dark implication?

Ninety percent of the world’s ice and 70pc of fresh water are trapped in the Antarctica’s 2,333m (7,000ft) thick ice cover.

If all of Antarctic’s ice melted, sea level around the world could increase by 61 metres or 200ft meaning many big coastal cities gone under, certainly most coastal towns around Sabah.

“The total energy imbalance is about 6/10th (six-tenths) of a watt per square metre,” Prof Hanson noted.

“That may not sound like much but when added up over the whole world, it’s enormous, it’s about 20 times greater than the energy used by all humanity,” he said.

“It’s equivalent to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day 365 days per year!”

“That’s how much extra energy each day.”

This imbalance if we want to stabilise climate it means it means that we must reduce CO2 from 391 PPM parts per million back to 350 PPM to restore Energy Balance and prevent further warming.

"Earth is gaining heat energy at a rate equal to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima-size atomic bomb every day 365 days per year. – Prof Hanson"