Categories
Environment

[1012] Of is the record rainfall in Johor part of a larger trend?

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.

Bloomberg reports:

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.

Categories
Photography

[1011] Of canoes at Titiwangsa Lake Garden

Last Friday, I was at the Great Green Promotion, organized by the Malaysian Nature Society. On the way back to my place, I stopped by Lake Titiwangsa. It’s been awhile since I last visited the place and I was curious if it has the same atmosphere it had when I last was there.

Large section of the park is under renovation, probably related to the Eye on Malaysia ferris wheel, for the Visit Malaysia Year event:

KUALA LUMPUR: A 60-metre high structure ‘Eye on Malaysia’, similar to the ‘London Eye’, will be unveiled at the launch of Visit Malaysia Year 2007 on Jan 6 at Taman Tasik Titiwangsa here.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, at a click of a button, would light up the Ferris wheel with 42 gondolas to start the celebrations.

I also brought my camera along and took some snapshots. The one I like the best, from a pool of mediocre photos, is a shot of canoes:

Some rights reserved. By Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams.

One thing for sure, the park felt smaller.

Categories
Environment

[1010] Of the upcoming IPCC Fourth Assessment Report

Whenever a debate on climate change occurs, more often than not, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC for short, will be cited. The IPCC is regarded by most, according to Wikipedia, as the authority in the science of climate change. Up to date, three Assessment Reports that summarize what we know of climate change have been published. The latest edition was issued in 2001. Come February 2007, the IPCC will release its Fourth Assessment Report.

Screenshot. Fair use. Original document by IPCC.
A screenshot of a page of the Report.

The third report affirms the relationship between human activities and current climate change we’re experiencing. Quoting a paragraph in page 10 of the Summary for Policymakers of the Third Assessment Report:

In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

It also projects an increase of average surface temperature between 1.4º and 5.8º C from 1990 to 2100. Sea level is expected to rise between 0.1 and 0.9 meter during the same period.

While the new report will only be release in February, The Telegraph offers the public a glimpse of what to expect from the report:

In a final draft of its fourth assessment report, to be published in February, the panel reports that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has accelerated in the past five years. It also predicts that temperatures will rise by up to 4.5 C during the next 100 years, bringing more frequent heat waves and storms.

The panel, however, has lowered predictions of how much sea levels will rise in comparison with its last report in 2001.

Based on the article at The Telegraph, the IPCC sets to restrict the average temperature rise between 1.5º and 4.5º C and decrease the ceiling for the sea level estimated rise from 0.9 meter to 0.4 meter.

Because the latest report tightens the expectation range, in the article:

Climate change sceptics are expected to seize on the revised figures as evidence that action to combat global warming is less urgent.

Before that happens, the point is that:

Scientists insist that the lower estimates for sea levels and the human impact on global warming are simply a refinement due to better data on how climate works rather than a reduction in the risk posed by global warming.

Also, it is expected that the IPCC will make a connection between global warming and stronger storms. The relationship was probably popularized after Katrina hit New Orleans. RealClimate has an article on the relationship between sea temperature and hurricane strength.

Talking about that relationship, some might be tempted to make a connection between climate change and the recent bout of typhoons that had hit eastern part of Southeast Asia. A connection might be made but I’d rather wait for an expert to offer an opinion, especially when El Niño is in the equation. For your information, El Niño transfers warm water from west to east Pacific. Keeping the relationship between warmer water and stronger storm, El Niño introduces weaker storms. Maybe, this is a good question to ask the people at RealClimate.

Regardless, one thing is certain: the 2007 report will maintain the connection between human activities and climate change.

Categories
Society

[1009] Of Perlis: from Indera Kayangan to Darul Sunnah

I patrol Wikipedia rather religiously. I used to make countless edits on it but lately, I haven’t had much time to spend on it. Nevertheless, because of the frequency of my visits, it’s relatively easy for me to spot vandalism on pages that I maintain watch on. While most acts of vandalism are easy to catch, some aren’t. Sometimes, legitimate edits could be mistaken as vandalism. One of such edition concerns the page Perlis. On that page, it’s easy to find anonymous editors changing the noun Perlis Indera Kayangan to Perlis Darul Sunnah.

At first, I thought the switch was purely vandalism or some newbies were having fun on Wikipedia. Later however, the changes were becoming above average in frequency and more importantly, consistent. Given that, I toyed with the possibility of me being wrong and the anonymous editors being right. To ascertain it, I ran a little research on the net and surprisingly, I found countless hits containing “Perlis Darul Sunnah”. One of those hits is an article from Harakah:

KANGAR, 26 Sep (Hrkh) – Pesuruhjaya PAS Perlis, Ustaz Hashim Jasin menyeru agar gelaran Indera Kayangan bagi negeri Perlis ditukar kepada Darul Sunnah secara rasminya.

That roughly translates into:

KANGAR, 26 Sept (Hrkh) – Perlis PAS commissioner Ustaz Hashim Jasin urged to officially change Perlis’ title from Indera Kayangan to Darul Sunnah.

The Department of Environment, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment also used Perlis Darul Sunnah instead of Perlis Indera Kayangan. The Department however isn’t consistent in its usage.

Indera Kayangan, by the way could be rendered to English as “land of dreams”. Dream as in when a person sleeps, the person dreams. As a person in the comment section has commeted and after consulting a dictionary, “land of gods” is the accurate intepretation.

Further search brought me to a forum which it’s stated that the Chief Minister of Perlis declared the name switch on July 2 2006. The forum might not be credible and so, handle this information with a healthy dose of skepticism.

What is wrong with Indera Kayangan anyway? Is it too unislamic?

If it is so, then I hope people of whom are making effort to change the state title realize that being a Muslim isn’t about being an Arab.

Categories
Sports

[1008] Of hail Curbishley

Oh yeah!

Nigel Reo-Coker answered Alan Curbishley’s call to do his talking on the pitch by grabbing the winner in the West Ham manager’s first game in charge as they beat Manchester United 1-0.

A great way to start the week.