Is this weather the new `normal’?
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In December 2012, rain showers which coincided with high tide flooded hundreds of homes in Terengganu, Pahang and Kelantan, with some 13,746 people being housed at evacuation centres. Torrential rain continued until the beginning of January, prompting the government to consider delaying the start of the school year for schools in those states. Though the Meteorological Department didn’t report that the amount of rainfall was unprecedented for that time of the year, the incessant rain seemed unusual.
In Australia, the national weather agency added two new colors to its maps to handle the possibility of unprecedented temperatures: deep purple for above 50°C and pink for above 52°C. Reports show that the first eight days of the year were among the warmest on record, with January 7 ranking as Australia's hottest day ever, with an average temperature of 40°C.
Elsewhere around the world, the weather has been equally extreme. The National Geographic reported that Tokyo saw 7.6 centimeters of snow fall on the city the second weekend of January 2013, nearly half of its typical total for a full year. While in China, the average temperature fell to -4°C in early January, the lowest in nearly three decades. More than a thousand ships in China's Laizhou Bay were frozen into the ice.
Scientists in the United States warned in a draft report released recently that extreme weather conditions may be the new `normal’. In the report – The National Climate Assessment, they’ve stated that the frequency and duration of extreme conditions are clear signs of a changing climate.
We know that anthropogenic activities like land clearing and deforestation are some of the contributors of global warming which has ultimately lend itself to climate change. With such visible meteorological evidence of our lapse in considering the effects of how we affect the world around us, isn’t it time to stop and re-think the path we’re on as we pursue economic prosperity?
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