Report on rapid climate change in the Pacific

Rapid Climate Change in the Pacific

Seemorerocks

The most significant news from this part of the world comes from the South Pacific.

Today’s news, both in Australia and in New Zealand is the formation of a tropical cyclone IN THE WINTER.

A tropical cyclone heading towards Solomon Islands is a freak out-of-season event.

From the ABC

Queensland forecasters have named Raquel as their first ever recorded July cyclone, which has formed this morning north of the Solomon Islands.

Senior forecaster Michael Knepp said the category one system was about 2,000 kilometres north-east of Cairns early this morning and it posed no threat to Queensland.

Radio N.Z says:

The New Zealand Metservice says the Category 1 cyclone, named Raquel, is the first on record to form in July in northern Melanesia.

The cyclone season typically runs from November to April.

Cyclone Raquel is expected to intensify over the next 24 hours as it approaches the Solomons.

Metservice meteorologist Georgina Griffiths says a cyclone in this region is unheard of at this time of year.

"In the early records, several lows were found to form in June or July in that Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea area but they were subsequently found not to be a fully blown tropical cyclone so this looks to be the first tropical system that has developed and been named in the Brisbane area of responsibility.".....

Metservice said Cyclone Raquel was about 355km north of the Solomon Islands capital, Honiara and moving about 13 kilometres per hour.

Forecaster Micky Malivuk said the cyclone should gradually intensify over the day.

"It will probably turn Category 2 by tomorrow morning, and by then it will be near Choiseul, and the winds will pick up and also heavy rain."

Continuous heavy rains fall in Solomon Islands caused by Cyclone Pam in the country's east heading South East and away to Vanuatu.

On the 25^th April Robertscribbler reported that

More fuel for El Nino’s fire and a record hot 2015 on the way…

A strengthening westerly wind burst over the Western Equatorial Pacific could produce a third warm Kelvin Wave and further heighten an El Nino that already has a potential to be very intense come the northern autumn (our spring).

He reported 20 to 35 mile per hour westerly winds being prevalent along a 2,500 mile stretch of ocean running from just east of the Philippines, across an equatorial zone just north of New Guinea, and on eastward for hundreds more miles in the direction of the Date Line.

Winds within the zone were predicted to strengthen to near gale force intensity. But it wasn’t the size of the zone that may have the greatest impact.

The strong westerlies would have a tendency to push warm surface waters, now topping off at 31 degrees Celsius (and 1-2 C above the already hotter than normal 1979 to 2000 average), downward and eastward. This heat pump action would generate what,are called warm Kelvin Waves.

Kelvin Waves are high energy fuel for strengthening El Ninos.

A friend of ours who was in Rarotonga last week reported very strong winds, something that I imagine is something out of the ordinary.

This part of the world is facing some very rocky times in deed.

Drought on Ha'apai in Tonga

I found it highly irregular that the Pacific, which is at the centre of climate change events is the least reported on areas of the world (with the possible exception of Africa).

We all heard about the devastating cyclone Pam that hit Vanuatu as a severe category 5 tropical cyclone in March.

That disappeared from the headlines and little has been reported since.

I diecided to do a brief search and I found that in addition to these severe weather events most islands in the region are beset with drought, water shortages and difficulties growing food. Islands like Kiribatati and Tuvalu are alredy seeing the effects of sea level rise.

Cyclone Pam on Tuvalu

Tuvalu, which suffered devastating destruction of its crops from cyclone Pam went practically unmentioned in the media

You can find more details on this on a report I posted on Seemorerocks on the 28th June

Rapid climate change in the South Pacific

Finally, there was an article in the NZ Herald this last weekend

Kiwis among world’s most sceptical of global warming claims

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of climate change scepticism in the developed world, a study has revealed. Surprisingly, we have more sceptics per capita than in the US, where large numbers of right-wing media and politicians refuse to accept climate change is man-made.

A new paper from the University of Tasmania, called Scepticism in a changing climate: a cross-national study, found 13 per cent of New Zealanders were climate change sceptics.

It was third only to Norway (15 per cent) and Australia (17 per cent). The United States came in at 12 per cent.

We all know that climate change so-called “sceptics” are not the only denialist. We have the ludicrous denialists who claim that the Pacific is sinking , not rising, but we have those that deny ABRUPT climate change.

We also have the Green Party who say that to admit climate change require admitting I might need to give up driving my SUV'

They suggest a puff on the hopium pipe and the pipe dream of a low-carbon future

“To increase climate change awareness the Greens wanted to highlight the opportunities that moving to a low-carbon future would create.”

The article pointed out that the report coincided with :

“one of the coldest weeks in New Zealand's history, with parts of the South Island reaching a bone-chilling -20°C.”

They failed to mention that it also coincided with with FOUR major floods in the country in little more than a month.

But of course, that’s weather isn’t it – nothing to do with climate change!

That’s enough from me

This is Seemorerocks, reporting from Down-Under