You're listening to AC N A podcast. Welcome to the Climate Conversations. I'm your host, Julie Yu Singapore released its third national climate change study, also known as V three last week and it makes for sober reading. We're not just talking about numbers here. We're delving into detailed projections stretching all the way to 2100. It's almost
like crystal ball gazing. But with science and data, this report basically gives a glimpse of how hot the island is going to be, how much rain will fall and how much the sea level will rise to help us unpack and make sense of the latest findings. I'm joined by Doctor Orel Moise, Deputy Director of the Department of Climate Research at the Center for Climate Research, Singapore, the agency behind the report. Doctor Moyes. Welcome to the Climate Conversations. Thank
you and I'm happy to be here.
Great to see you to kick things off. Tell us, first of all, why is a report like this important for Singapore?
I think the importance of this report is the most up to date information you can possibly get at the highest resolution that is available for Singapore to understand how the climate is changing, what worlds we are looking into in the future decades and also how this will depend on the overall global pathway on carbon emissions. So we did the study looking at three different pathways, the low medium and high emission pathway
in predicting climate patterns. There is no simple feat but walk us through the process behind these projections and how accurate can we expect them to
be? So where this all starts is with a global modeling program that the World Climate Research program co ordinates where 50 plus global climate centers in the world all simulate the future climate under the same experimental conditions using supercomputers. So there's two cycles, the modeling cycle and then a few years later, the A PC C cycle.
So what we do is we take the 50 plus global models and subselect the best ones for our region and those six best ones, we then run a separate climate model just over Southeast Asia and over Singapore to further what we call downscale information. But what we have with this is high resolution information that is non existent. Otherwise nobody else has this kind of data for South East Asia and Singapore.
When you went through the final projections, did the findings align with your expectations, any surprises?
Some of the surprises we found specifically for South East Asia and Singapore was what we call extremes now over the last decade or so will become rather normal. By the end of the century and particularly the high emission scenario. So this is something to think about because as the climate is slowly warming in the background, the way we will experience this change is initially through the higher occurrence of extreme events,
whether it's rainfall or temperature. And so this is definitely something to keep an eye on the second. Not surprising but certainly concerning result is the possibility of a large number of heat stress died by the end of the century.
Ok. So doctor let's delve into the specific projections starting with temperature. Obviously, in Singapore, we've been feeling the heat for several years now. And the report says that 35 degrees is likely to be the norm. Could it go
higher typically with these kind of projections? The numbers we give away are what we call climatological averages so that they represent not the temperature on any particular day, but they represent averages over quite a long time period. So 10 or 20 years and this means if there is an average projected to be 20 or 35 degrees for that period, then if you look at a day to day basis, of course, they go higher and lower because you have the daily
variation in temperature around the average. So if you look at, for example, now on our website, average temperature for the last 10 years for a particular season is 29 degrees. But of course, on a daily basis, it goes up to 33 or below it. So this kind of what we call variability will still exist in the future. And the objected values we give are typically averages over a time period, but also averages over those six models that I mentioned before.
And this is where we get the range from. So you will see that our results will say an average of this and a range from here to here. And this range is expressed as the range from the models from minimum to maximum because we only have the model simulations as the only indicators what our future climate will be like. And each model gives you a slightly different version of the future climate. And we take that
range of possible future climate as the range. Unfortunately, the minimum temperatures, the nightly minimum temperatures are also rising and rising actually at a faster speed than the maximum. So to me, the concerning thing is that we might not get as much cooling during the night as we used to. And this is where people have to try to adapt to this and maybe switch on the air conditioners to 25 degrees and not 24 be mindful of the times of day when you are actually outside
and otherwise use cooling measures to stay cool. You know, the government released a heat stress advisory, the National Environment Agency. And this is something where there is clear guidance on what you should do in terms of outdoor activities and be mindful.
And doctor, let's talk about rainfall. And anyone who has been in Singapore these last few weeks will know it's been pouring almost every day. It used to be more predictable, but now it appears harder
to predict. So what you're talking about is weather prediction, which is different to climate. There's a clear difference between the question, I just want to predict for the next 5 to 7 days because all your tools are very different that you use the models and everything. Whether to ask the question, what is the climate going to do by the end of the century or by the middle of the century, the tools are very different and even though there are similar processes involved, but it's
the timescale of interest that makes the difference. And therefore the question on whether weather is harder to predict at the moment is not something that we looked at in terms of E three. So it's an interesting question, but it's a completely separate issue. So what my study looked at is the long term changes and what this means for average and extreme climates.
So wet months are getting wetter, up to about 60% dry months are getting drier, but up to 40%. Could you explain that to us? So
one way to visualize this is that when it rains, it pours. So over the same time period, when it rains, you can maybe expect stronger what we call rain rates. This is the rain per time and then the spaces in between could be longer because you have more periods of dry spells in between. So that's one way to visualize this. And this is also in line with what in a lot of locations around the world, globally, IPCC said is as the extremes are getting more extremes, we see
particularly the rainfall extremes to increase. But also at the same time, we see some dry spells duration and frequency
increasing. And that's certainly worrying for, I guess people's health and also there is a higher chance for flooding delays in construction, traffic congestions and so on. So
if worked all along already with Singapore's Water Agency P very very closely. They are one of our closer stakeholders and they already had access to our information before anybody else because they are in the process of building the coastal protection systems and studies. So they are well aware of where this goes and they take care of the design parameters that are in line with what
we say. So I'm not concerned about the extreme rainfall because I know that drainage systems will be designed appropriately.
So let's move on to sea level protection. A big deal for Singapore given its vulnerability to rising sea levels. The report here says that sea levels around Singapore could rise by more than 1 m by year 2100 and up to 2.12 m by 2050. How would you explain the potential impact of 1 to 2 m rise in sea levels for a low lying country like Singapore sea
level rise projected by the end of this century, 1.15 m up to that value under the high emission scenario is not that different from what we said years ago. And it is also not too far away from what the global average is actually. So it's not really outstanding to that respect. And it's something that pub is well aware of in terms of what this could mean to
their planning parameters. And PUB is not only taking that sea level rise into account, but also all the other wave storm surge, tidal variability, everything else that comes on top of this. So pub needs to take care of all of this for us. The change from 1 to 2 m is therefore something that is already well in their planning scope that is clear by 2150. The main thing to think about is the ocean reacts a bit different to the warming than the atmosphere because
it's much slower warming, but for much longer. So even if the world decides to come together and do a lot of mitigation to go to the low emission scenario pathway by the end of this century, which means the atmosphere change will slowly ease and flatten off the ocean will still warm. And expand for the next few centuries and therefore still rise even in the low emission scenario. So by in 200 years time, we'll be looking at several meters sea level rise because of this.
And that's something that I'm sure every government in the world has to look at in terms of the long term unavoidable change in the ocean. What can be done about this and this is something that of course, is very far away and the government will react along the way. But for the next decades, until 2150 everything is already part of the planning.
And this V three report is not only looking at Singapore but also their projections on Southeast Asia as a whole. Singapore residents obviously travel a great deal to Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, which projection stood out for you in terms of this part of the region. What should we know about how our neighbors are going to be affected?
So the impact on our neighbors is quite diverse because there are areas where we will see fairly strong increases in rainfall in some seasons and other areas where there clearly drought behavior. And so one of the important issues here for Singapore, of course, is around food security and the source countries for Singapore's food crops that we are importing.
And so with regard to sea level rice. Key thing here is to look at some of those South East Asian mega cities that are near big river delta and the potential for them to be inundated by future sea level real. And I'm sure they will address. This is another important issue when it comes to sea level rise because there's not only the ocean that is potentially going upwards, but the land
that in some regions is going downwards. So there's two processes, one is associated with climate and climate change, which is what the ocean is doing. And the other one is associated with non climate issues. And this is what we call vertical land motion and vertical land motion is impacted by earthquakes by everything that influences the local tectonics. And so we know that some areas are slightly sinking. Singapore is not, but this
is a real issue across the world. And South East Asia is to understand what your land is doing relative to a rising ocean. So the
thing about projections is that are in end of century time frames, that's what decades from now. So the current generations may not take it so seriously. What's the value in understanding these long term shifts?
Of course, all of our information is sort of focused on the end of the century for now because this is typically done that you want to look at the delta between now and then. But our data is actually data that is between now and then on subd time steps. So we are providing data to our stakeholders, not just by the end of the century, we have information for every 10 minutes between now and then you need this kind of data to understand the daily
variability in rainfall. For example, the changes in temperature and rainfall, not just by the end, but in the coming years and decades,
I mean, the job of science is to show the way and this report has certainly done that. What needs to be done next to act on science? Do you feel that we have what it takes to deal with these upcoming changes
on this sort of basic fundamental science informing the government in terms of policy and adaptation planning. This is one of the most complete sets of data that you will need and we know in the region we are the first and we are certainly at the highest resolution. And so to us with this data armed the Singapore government can write really solid policies in terms of future changes in the decades to come.
What are you most concerned about and when you are talking to your stakeholders, what are their biggest concerns?
So my main concern is communicating our sign in a way that they can understand in a way that helps them to do whatever they need to do. I think most of their concern is the impacts of extremes on their area of business. Basically, whether it's and parks and tree falling or pub and floods and extreme rain. And you are a for example, urban heat and we haven't actually spoken about urban heat
yet because Singapore is an urban city country. And so our temperature projections that we provide are projections that at this stage don't fully take into account what we call the urban heat island effect, which is the additional warming that is due to the urban capture of heat during the day. And then the only slow release at night which keeps the temperatures warmer at night.
And so we will study the urban heat Island effect because you need to go even higher in resolutions just for Singapore to understand what is the urban heat island effect throughout this century. Do you
have a time frame for this
study? By the end of this year, it will be done another deadline to. Absolutely. As I said earlier, this is just the beginning. So now that we have the data, we will analyze many more dimensions of what is still in the data and that we can communicate to our stakeholders and the public. Before I
let you go, Dr I'm looking forward, how would you gauge the degree to which the findings of this report are being acknowledged or accepted and transformed into actionable
measures? This is to ask a call to action that everybody can look at the results and has to understand that everyone can do something to contribute to the overall reduction in carbon emissions. Whether this is on a personal footprint, on an organizational footprint, government footprint, I can tell you truthfully that Singapore is one of the very few countries I know where all of their policy and adaptation planning is based on the solid science and they are very committed to look at
the science and then base everything on that. So I'm very impressed by how this is being done in Singapore.
Ok. Well, Dr Moy, thank you very much for your insight today. Thank you, but thanks to my guest for explaining the significance of this important study. I hope you learned as much from it as I did. And thank you for listening to the Climate Conversations. The team behind this podcast is Tiffany Yang Christina Robert, Joanne Chen and Nguyen. I'm Julie Yu signing off.