According to news, Johor is practically under water after receiving above average rainfall on Monday and Tuesday. Singapore wasn’t spare either. Record breaking could be use to describe the rainfall in Johor and Singapore.
Out of 31 monitoring stations in Johor, 24 recorded “very heavy” rainfall of more than 60 millimeters yesterday, according to the Department of Irrigation and Drainage’s Web site. The highest rainfall of 289 millimeters was recorded in Johor Baru.
The Star reports that in Johor, nearly 30,000 people have been evacuated…
MUAR: Nearly 30,000 people have been evacuated in Johor following the extraordinary heavy rainfall over the past three days, Mentri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman said.
…while Singapore suffered the worst rainfall in 75 years:
SINGAPORE: Singapore on Tuesday was hit by the third highest rainfall recorded in 75 years.
The 24-hour rainfall recorded was 366 mm.
About a year ago, northern Malaysian states along with southern Thai states suffered record breaking rainfall that caused massive flood. China, Japan and Vietnam each suffer their own record breaking snow and rainfall. Keep in mind while that occurred, the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active seasons in recorded history. In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore said “…Japan reported a record number of typhoons“.
The historic disaster in Johor makes me think, is it possible to link it to climate change?
The world is currently experiencing El Niño and El Niño is supposed to bring less rainfall to Southeast Asia on average, not more. If it’s true that climate change should cause more rainfall in this part of the world, and if it’s true that El Niño had actually reduced the amount of rainfall in Southeast Asia, imagine what it would be like if there were no El Niño.
In Malaysia, the mainstream society never really gives the issue of climate change a thought. We’re too pre-occupied with moral policing, religion, ethnicity and other trivial things appeal to our inferiority complex that do nothing to solve real pressing issues like the economy, education and the environment. It’s time for us to at least pay a little more attention to the environment and investigate the possible link between extreme natural climatic disasters that are hitting us year by year lately with a global trend that is climate change.