Recently in class, we have been tasked to set up individual blogs and to choose one topic related to climate change as the running theme for all the posts that we would be writing in the upcoming months. When I first heard about the task, the thought that came running through my mind was the relationship between natural disasters and climate change in recent history. As you might realise, the title of the blog includes the word hap(hazard), which was actually intended to highlight the association of this blog to the topic of natural hazards and disasters and also to suggest that we are still highly uncertain about many phenomena occurring in the world, and even more so with the impacts of climate change.
 |
Credits: AP Photo
|
Natural disasters have always fascinated me since the start of my geography education in secondary school when we were introduced to the processes of floods, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. In fact, this interest in natural disasters has likely also played a part in influencing my decision to venture down the path of physical geography now at university.
 |
Location of Singapore
Credits: Escape Artist |
Despite my interest in natural disasters, I have not had much first-hand experiences living through these phenomena. I come from Singapore, a sunny city-state island located in Southeast Asia, just off the southern tip of Malaysia. We are so strategically located that we are really blessed to be sheltered from most natural disasters that often plague our neighbouring countries, although we occasionally experience very slight tremors that are linked to earthquakes that have struck the neighbouring region. Nonetheless, I have rubbed shoulders with some natural disasters during my travels to countries outside of Singapore. I remember being in my hotel room in Tokyo back in 2007 when the entire room started to move up and down for a short period of time. The vertical movements caught me surprise and it took me awhile before I realise that they probably were caused by the waves associated with an earthquake in the region. Also, two years back during our post-exam vacation to Sicily, we hiked up Mount Etna and saw it coughing out some smoke as it had just erupted 3 times in the weeks before we were there.
Getting back to the task at hand, I think this blog project would be an excellent opportunity for me to explore further into the topic of natural disasters and for me to seek out answers to some burning questions that I have in mind:
- Are natural disasters getting more extreme (i.e. increased intensity and frequency) in recent years?
- If so, is recent human-induced climate change responsible for this increasing trend? Or is it actually still within the natural variability of the weather/natural world?
- What is the link between climate change and hurricanes/typhoons, floods and droughts?
- What about volcano eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis? Can climate change have any impact on these natural disasters as well?
- What is the way forward? Is the future getting increasingly uncertain? How should we shape our natural disaster mitigation/ adaption policies in light of climate change?
So join me on this journey as I seek out the answers (or attempt to do so) over the course of these 3 months and hopefully become more enlightened at the end of it.
 |
Credits: Magellan Life Coaching
|
For now, check out the first Disaster Bite on Typhoon Fitow that made headlines over the weekend!
Disaster Bite: Typhoon Fitow 2013
- Typhoon Fitow made landfall at 1.15am (local time) on 7th Oct in Fuding City, Fujian province.
- Wind speed hit 200km/h with rainfall of up to 29cm.
- 547000 people were evacuated from Zhejiang and 177000 from Fujian
- At least 5 people have died after being swept away by the waters and from electric shocks in Wenzhou and Ruian.
- More information:
No comments:
Post a Comment