Many of the world’s major cities will face sharply different climates by 2050, with those in the tropics facing conditions including more intense rainfall and extreme droughts, researchers say.
Half of the planet’s population lives in cities and by 2050, little more than a generation away, three in four will live in urban areas, says the United Nations.
Singapore is boosting its defences and resilience. Last week, the Government announced it will pump $400 million over the next two years into upgrading and maintaining drains, and channel $10 million into studying sea level rise.
Researchers at ETH Zurich University in Switzerland wanted to find a way to visualise how climate change will affect major world cities. They chose 520 cities and examined the current climate for each, and then ran computer simulations for what the climate would be like in 2050.
Across Europe, summers and winters will get warmer, with northern climates becoming more like those in the south, the researchers found.
According to Dr Jean-Francois Bastin of ETH Zurich, more extreme rainfall events are likely, increasing the risk of flooding and therefore the need for better drainage.
But Dr Bastin explained that the shift to new climate conditions in the tropics might not be extreme.
Singapore’s climate is already getting hotter. The hottest days exceed 34 deg C, compared with an average of 27 deg C in the 1960s.
To boost climate science research on the tropics, Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli last Wednesday said Singapore had “taken the initiative to lead” through the work of the Centre for Climate Research Singapore.
“Climate change sets us a monumental, inter-generational task – how to ensure that our Little Red Dot does not disappear below the waves.”
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Source: The Straits Times, 22 July 2019