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familiar ingredients a warming world Already in place: searing temperatures, hotter air holding more moisture, extreme weather getting wilder, glaciers melting, people living at risk, and poverty.They unite in fragile Pakistan to create Relentless rains and deadly floods.
Floods have all the hallmarks of a climate-change-induced disaster, several scientists told The Associated Press, but it’s too early to formally pin the blame on global warming. It’s taking place in a country that has done little to contribute to a warming climate, but it keeps hitting like relentless rain.
“Pakistan has seen the highest rainfall in at least three decades this year. So far this year, rainfall is more than 780 percent above average,” said Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute and member of the Pakistan Climate Change Council. “Extreme weather patterns have become more frequent in the region and Pakistan is no exception.”
Climate Minister Sherry Rehman said: “This is a disaster on an unprecedented scale.”
Mosin Hafez, a climate scientist at the International Water Management Institute in Lahore, said Pakistan is “considered the eighth most vulnerable country to climate change”.Its rain, heat and melting glaciers are all climate change factors for scientists repeated warnings about.
While scientists have pointed to these classic climate change fingerprints, they have yet to complete complex calculations comparing what happens in Pakistan to what would happen in a world without warming. The study, which is expected to be completed in a few weeks, will formally determine the extent, if any, factor of climate change.
“The recent floods in Pakistan are actually the result of a climate catastrophe … it’s very serious,” said Anjar Prakash, research director at the Bharti Institute for Public Policy in India. “This constant rainfall … is Unprecedented.”
Pakistan is used to monsoons and downpours, but “we do expect them to spread out, usually for three or two months,” said the country’s climate minister, Rehman.
There are usually breaks, she said, and rainfall isn’t much — 37.5 centimeters (14.8 inches) in one day, nearly triple the national average over the past 30 years. “It’s not that long either. … It’s been eight weeks and we’ve been told we might see another downpour in September.”
“It’s clear that climate change is exacerbating this,” said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts.
Hafeez said regions such as Balochistan and Sindh experienced a 400 percent increase in average rainfall, which led to extreme flooding. At least 20 dams were damaged.
The heat is relentless as rain.Pakistan in May keep seeing the temperature Above 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit). High temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) were recorded in places such as Jakobabad and Dadu.
Warmer air has more moisture— About 7% per degree Celsius (4% per degree Fahrenheit) – This will eventually drop, in this case torrenting.
Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University, said that “intense torrential rains are getting more intense” around the world. He said mountains, like those in Pakistan, help squeeze extra moisture out as clouds pass by.
Not only did Pakistan suffer from extra rainfall causing rivers to overflow, but it also suffered from another type of flash flood: Extreme heat accelerated the long-term melting of glaciers, and then water flowed from the Himalayas to Pakistan in a dangerous phenomenon known as glacial lake outburst flood.
“We have the most glaciers outside the polar regions, and that affects us,” said Climate Minister Lehmann. “Instead of maintaining their majesty and protecting them for future generations and nature. We are seeing them melt.”
Not all problems are climate change.
In 2010, Pakistan experienced similar flooding and destruction, killing nearly 2,000 people. But Souleri of the country’s climate change committee said the government has not implemented plans to prevent future flooding by blocking buildings and houses in flood-prone areas and riverbeds.
The catastrophe is hitting a poor country that contributes relatively little to the world’s climate problems, scientists and officials say. Since 1959, Pakistan has emitted about 0.4% of endothermic carbon dioxide, compared with 21.5% in the US and 16.4% in China.
“Those countries that rely on fossil fuels to grow or get rich, that’s really a problem,” Lehman said. “They’re going to have to make a critical decision that the world is about to reach a tipping point. We’ve certainly reached that point because of our geography.”
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