Before you see the words climate change, heave a heavy sigh and scroll onward ask yourself, aside from all the political hype and doomsday prophesies you’ve heard, what do you actually know about global warming?Well, the world’s definitely getting warmer (Duh, it’s in the name) and you probably know something about the sea level’s rising, but what else do you actually know?
The answer’s probably not much, and that’s understandable. It’s because you’re bored of hearing it, right? In that case, let me try and educate you on some of the effects climate change will have on our weather and try to give you a slightly different perspective on global warming.Hopefully you won’t be as bored by my post on climate change than the hundreds you’ve already scrolled past.
In the tropics,where I come, we only have two seasons, the dry and the wet, where throughout the wet we have torrential rains along with storms and cyclones. But what people have noticed is the severe storms and cyclones that affect us every year are becoming far less frequent, and the length of our wet season is decreasing. So why is that? Just some statistical fluke? Well actually, no. Almost every credible climate model (with the effects of climate change thrown in) predicts this, storms and cyclones are becoming fewer and fewer! But hang on, isn’t this a good thing? Fewer cyclones,they’re bad aren’t they? Well,yes and no.
Cyclones, yes,are phenomenal displays of nature’s strength and can be devastating, but on the other hand our ecosystems depend on and have adapted to them.Cyclone’s clear out forests,change river courses and irrigate the land. So the occasional cyclone is necessary, but we’re not just talking about cyclones, these trends hold true for rainfall and the length of our wet seasons.
But cyclones are no longer the same big issue they were 30 years ago,trends show over these years damages due to cyclones, even freakishly severe ones, is decreasing due to huge improvements in our infrastructure and preparation.The real concern lies in whether future cyclones will become far worse than any we’ve seen before.
The truth is, no one really knows whether cyclones will become worse.Almost every climate model disagrees, some predict storms to decrease in their intensity by up to 95%, while others predict the same increase.This is a scary thought, we don’t even understand this potentially catastrophic issue enough to know whether we need to prepare for storms of Hollywood proportions or prepare to say goodbye to our wet season.
So we do know storms are becoming fewer (not good) and the severity of storms is becoming wildly unpredictable(also, not good), however, these aren’t doomsday prophecies. I’m not here to tell you some inspirational message, to sell your car and grow a veggie garden, but what I am telling you is climate change is effecting our world in all sorts of mysterious ways.If we don’t take any action now, then we may need to prepare to adapt rapidly to the new world we’re creating.