World Meteorological Group says floods and storms have been main reason behind casualties and financial losses as influence of heatwaves turns into extra extreme.
Asia was the area most affected by local weather change, climate and water-related hazards globally final yr, the United Nations climate company has mentioned.
In a report revealed on Tuesday, the World Meteorological Group (WMO) mentioned floods and storms have been the principle reason behind casualties and financial injury in 2023, whereas the influence of heatwaves turned extra extreme.
It discovered that Asia has been warming sooner than the worldwide common, with temperature rises in 2023 averaging almost 2 levels Celsius (3.6 levels Fahrenheit) above the 1961-90 common.
“Many international locations within the area skilled their hottest yr on report in 2023, together with a barrage of maximum situations, from droughts and heatwaves to floods and storms,” WMO chief Celeste Saulo mentioned in a press release.
She added that local weather change “exacerbated the frequency and severity of such occasions”, calling the report’s conclusions “sobering”.
The company mentioned 79 disasters related to water-related climate hazards have been reported in Asia final yr. Of these, some 80 p.c have been floods and storms, with greater than 2,000 deaths and 9 million folks immediately affected.
The State of the Local weather in Asia 2023 report additionally discovered that floods have been the main reason behind loss of life in reported occasions in 2023 “by a considerable margin”.
Hong Kong recorded 158.1mm (6.2 inches) of rainfall in a single hour on September 7 – the best since data started in 1884 – on account of a storm.
The report additionally highlighted that the majority glaciers within the excessive mountain area in Asia had misplaced vital mass due to record-breaking excessive temperatures and dry situations.
Precipitation was under regular within the Himalayas and within the Hindu Kush mountain ranges in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2023, whereas southwest China suffered from a drought, with below-normal precipitation ranges in almost each month of the yr.
Significantly excessive common temperatures have been recorded from western Siberia to Central Asia, and from jap China to Japan, the report mentioned, with Japan having its hottest summer time on report.
‘Urgency’ for motion
The report comes as a variety of Asian international locations have been hit by extreme floods in current weeks.
In southern China, greater than 100,000 folks have been evacuated on Tuesday as a result of heavy rain and floods which have killed no less than 4 folks. In the meantime, authorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan final week declared a state of emergency in some areas after heavy rains and flash floods killed no less than 100 folks.
The WMO mentioned there was an pressing want for nationwide climate companies throughout Asia to enhance tailor-made info to officers engaged on lowering catastrophe dangers.
“It’s crucial that our actions and techniques mirror the urgency of those instances,” mentioned Saulo.
“Lowering greenhouse gasoline emissions and adapting to the evolving local weather just isn’t merely an choice, however a elementary necessity.”
Peter Newman, professor of sustainability at Curtin College, instructed Al Jazeera that local weather change is a “conflict that we’re inducing onto ourselves,” including that the world is in the course of local weather disaster that’s anticipated to worsen till internet zero emissions are applied totally.
“If we are able to do this by 2040, for instance, then instantly, we’d begin to get on prime of all of it, however till then we’re going to should anticipate extra injury from floods, fires, and all types of climate adjustments,” he mentioned.
He referred to the current floods throughout Asia as a “terrific wake-up name”, including that the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change, of which he’s a co-ordinating lead creator, has been predicting adjustments for a while, however that they’ve “come faster than we thought.”