The Great Debate UK

Why Pakistan monsoons support evidence of global warming

-Lord Julian Hunt is visiting Professor at Delft University, and former Director-General of the UK Met Office. The opinions expressed are his own.-

The unusually large rainfall from this year’s monsoon has caused the most catastrophic flooding in Pakistan for 80 years, with the U.N. estimating that around one fifth of the country is underwater.  This is thus truly a crisis of the very first order.

Heavy monsoon precipitation has increased in frequency in Pakistan and Western India in recent years.  For instance, in July 2005, Mumbai was deluged by almost 950 mm (37 inches) of rain in just one day, and more than 1,000 people were killed in floods in the state of Maharashtra.  Last year, deadly flash floods hit Northwestern Pakistan, and Karachi was also flooded.

It is my clear view that this trend is being fueled both by global warming (which also means extremes of rainfall are also a growing world-wide trend), and indeed potentially by any intensification of the El-Nino/La-Nino cycle.

To understand the reasons why global warming is playing a role here, one needs to look at the main climatic trends in South Asia.  In addition to more extreme rainfall events, there is also a decreasing thickness of ice over the Tibetan plateau and changing patterns of precipitation, with less snow at higher levels, plus more rapid run off from mountains.

How does climate change help explain this?

International crises and the value of Global System Dynamics

-Lord Julian Hunt is a Visiting Professor at Delft University of Technology. The opinions expressed are his own.-

In their different ways, the disruption and damage caused by the ongoing Icelandic Volcano eruption, and the major oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, have underlined how low-probability events can wreak havoc locally and across the world.

Both events underline the continuing need for well-established crisis response by international bodies.  Risk assessments taking into account all the diverse scientific and social interactions should enable the public and private sector to prepare in advance.

•    Although international procedures by UN bodies for dealing simultaneously with volcanic eruptions, meteorology and aviation had been agreed and tested at a technical level since the 1990s, the disruption caused by the Icelandic volcano led EU Transport Ministers call for quicker and more coordinated reaction to such crisis situations.

•    In the Gulf of Mexico, the “unprecedented environmental disaster” from the oil spillage shows the need for environmental risk assessment as much as economic risks now being considered in the context of the volcano.

While the volcano and oil spills have causes and consequences that can be explained in terms of earth science, engineering, ecology and economics, other disruptive events with rapid global impacts can result simply from people’s actions — notably the fall of Lehman Brothers and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Beyond Copenhagen: sub-national solutions are now key

- Julian Hunt is visiting professor at Delft University and formerly director general of the UK meteorological office. Charles Kennel is distinguished professor of atmospheric science, emeritus and senior advisor to the sustainability solutions institute, UCSD. The opinions expressed are their own. -

The non-legally binding “deal” agreed at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen among the U.S., China, Brazil, South Africa and India, has brought to a conclusion what has proved an extraordinarily complex set of negotiations.

The outcome has been criticised on numerous grounds and, in U.S. President Barack Obama’s own words, “We have much further to go”.

In effect, the agreement may ultimately amount to no more than a long-term climate change dialogue between Washington and Beijing.  While global action to tackle emissions of carbon dioxide must remain a priority, the fact remains that we may be heading towards a future in which no long-term, comprehensive successor to the Kyoto regime is politically possible.

One of the chief flaws in the Copenhagen negotiations was the fact that the overly-ambitious political deals being discussed were not realistic, nor framed to inspire people to act and collaborate with each other across the world on both a local and regional level.  Going forwards, national governments will need to be more honest about future likely emissions and also of future temperature changes.  In this crucial debate, scientists must be free to state their estimates without political bias.

In the absence of a new global deal, it is now crucial that the centre of gravity of decision-making on how we respond to climate change moves towards the sub-national level.  This may also have the effect of re-energising future global climate change talks as environment diplomacy could certainly be furthered by policies decided at the local and regional level.

The need for such a paradigm shift from a “top-down” to a “bottom-up” approach is becoming clearer by the day.