Climate Change
Warming, other factors worsened Pakistan floods, study finds
Climate change likely juiced rainfall by up to 50% late last month in two southern Pakistan provinces, but global warming wasn’t the biggest cause of the country’s catastrophic flooding that has killed more than 1,500 people, a new scientific analysis finds, AP reported.
Pakistan’s overall vulnerability, including people living in harm’s way, is the chief factor in the disaster that at one point submerged one-third of the country under water, but human-caused “climate change also plays a really important role here,” said study senior author Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College of London.
There are many ingredients to the still ongoing humanitarian crisis — some meteorological, some economic, some societal, some historic and construction oriented. Add to that weather records that don’t go back far enough in time.
With such complications and limitations, the team of international scientists looking at the disaster couldn’t quantify how much climate change had increased the likelihood and frequency of the flooding, said authors of the study. It was released Thursday but not yet peer reviewed.
What happened “would have been a disastrously high rainfall event without climate change, but it’s worse because of climate change,” Otto said. “And especially in this highly vulnerable region, small changes matter a lot.”
But other human factors that put people in harm’s way and weren’t adequate to control the water were even bigger influences.
“This disaster was the result of vulnerability that was constructed over many, many years,” said study team member Ayesha Siddiqi of the University of Cambridge.
August rainfall in the Sindh and Balochistan provinces — together nearly the size of Spain — was eight and nearly seven times normal amounts, while the country as a whole had three-and-a-half times its normal rainfall, according to the report by World Weather Attribution, a collection of mostly volunteer scientists from around the world who do real-time studies of extreme weather to look for the fingerprints of climate change.
The team looked at just the two provinces over five days and saw an increase of up to 50% in the intensity of rainfall that was likely due to climate change. They also looked at the entire Indus region over two months and saw up to a 30% increase in rainfall there.
The scientists not only examined records of past rains, which only go back to 1961, but they used computer simulations to compare what happened last month to what would have happened in a world without heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas — and that difference is what they could attribute to climate change. This is a scientifically valid technique, according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Study co-author Fahad Saeed, a climate scientist at Climate Analytics and the Center for Climate Change and Sustainable Development in Islamabad, Pakistan, said numerous factors made this monsoon season much wetter than normal, including a La Nina, the natural cooling of part of the Pacific that alters weather worldwide.
But other factors had the signature of climate change, Saeed said. A nasty heat wave in the region earlier in the summer — which was made 30 times more likely because of climate change — increased the differential between land and water temperatures. That differential determines how much moisture goes from the ocean to the monsoon and means more of it drops.
And climate change seemed to slightly change the jet stream, storm tracks and where low pressure sits, bringing more rainfall for southern provinces than they usually get, Saeed said.
“Pakistan has not contributed much in terms of causing global climate change, but sure is having to deal with a massive amount of climate change consequences,” said University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck, who wasn’t part of the study.
Overpeck and three other outside climate scientists said the study makes sense and is nuanced properly to bring in all risk factors.
The nuances help “avoid overinterpretation,” said Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field. “But we also want to avoid missing the main message — human-caused climate change is increasing the risks of extreme events around the world, including the devastating 2022 Pakistan flooding.”
The Ministry of Natural Disaster Management said on Tuesday that at least 24 people have died and 13 others have been injured in recent rains in 13 provinces of the country in the past 10 days.
Shafiullah Rahimi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Natural Disasters, says that in the past 24 hours, three people died and one person was injured in heavy rain in Paktia, Paktika, Maidan Wardak and Khost provinces respectively.
In addition, 31 houses were either damaged or completely destroyed in the rain.
On Monday the Meteorological Department issued a warning of heavy rain and possible flash floods in 20 provinces over two days – including Tuesday.
“At least 24 people have died, 13 people have been injured and 120 houses have been completely destroyed in 13 provinces of the country in nearly ten days, and more than 3,000 acres of agricultural land and gardens have been destroyed,” said Rahimi.
He also said the Ministry of Natural Disaster Management in cooperation with United Nations organizations and NGOs has been able to distribute food and non-food items and cash aid to nearly 15,000 families in the past ten days. He also said the process is still underway.
Pacific island leaders will meet South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul on Monday, their third summit in a week with a large economy as the region seeks stronger action on climate change as it becomes a focus of geopolitical power attention.
The Pacific islands span 40 million square kilometers of ocean between the United States and Asia, and Western allies have moved to boost their engagement amid concerns over China’s security ambitions for the strategic waters and economic leverage among the small island states, Reuters reported.
Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles will attend the first Korea-Pacific Islands Summit, his office said on Saturday, adding it would show cooperation between the 18 members of the Pacific Island Forum and South Korea for a secure region.
“Australia welcomes Korea’s interest in deepening ties with the Pacific, and looks forward to building on our foundation of shared values to promote our mutual interest in a prosperous and resilient Pacific,” he said in a statement.
South Korea is Australia’s third-largest export market, with trade dominated by exports of gas and coal. Marles will also hold a bilateral meeting with Korean Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-sup.
Australia and New Zealand are the largest members of the forum, a bloc of mostly small island countries at risk from rising sea levels caused by climate change and reliant on aid from development partners.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged more trade and development assistance in a summit with a dozen Pacific island leaders in Papua New Guinea (PNG) on Monday. The United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed a defense agreement with PNG after a Pacific summit there on the same day.
The back-to-back meetings with major economies were a “massive boost for recognition of our priorities”, said Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Henry Puna in a statement.
The island states, which are seeking greater funding for climate change mitigation, have taken a collective approach to dealing with major powers.
The Pacific islands has the world’s largest tuna fishery, where South Korea’s long distance fleet has been fishing since 1958, catching 255,226 tonnes in 2021 under license schemes controlled by the forum members.
France, which has Pacific overseas territories, will also join the Seoul meeting.
The consequences of climate change have the potential to unleash a level of destruction on Afghan society that is comparable to the devastation wrought by the decades of war, EU Charge d’Affaires to Afghanistan, Rafaella Iodice warned on Sunday.
The diplomat said this during a conference held by EU Delegation to Afghanistan to discuss climate change and its effects.
Afghan experts, practitioners and activists discussed the effects of climate change on urban and rural communities in Afghanistan, and elaborated on ways for communities to become more climate resilient. The conference also saw presentations from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the Agha Khan Foundation and the UN Development Programme, EU Delegation said in a press release.
“Looking ahead, the consequences of climate change have the potential to unleash a level of destruction on Afghan society that is comparable to the devastation wrought by the decades of war,” Iodice, said. “With several severe droughts over the last decade alone, the impact of climate change is already having a disastrous impact on the lives of the Afghan people. Therefore I feel there is an urgency for everybody to take these signs seriously and to take action.”
Tomas Niklasson, EU Special Envoy for Afghanistan, added: “Our discussion today is meant to re-start a conversation on climate change in Afghanistan. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of Afghan people and forge a more sustainable, resilient, and prosperous future for all.”
EU Delegation noted that agriculture forms the backbone of the Afghan economy and is highly sensitive to fluctuations in rainfall, water availability and climate change impacts.
“The last decade has seen a faster-than-average increase of temperatures in the country, leading to more frequent and intense droughts, heatwaves and flooding throughout the country. These meteorological events can have far-reaching social and economic repercussions, and they accentuate poverty and displacement that resulted from the last forty years of violence,” EU Delegation said.
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