When extreme weather hits, Japan scientists will have faster answers on climate links
A group of scientists in Japan has launched a new research center to rapidly analyze and quantify the impact of global warming on extreme weather events, aiming to make the impact of human-induced climate change more visible to the public.
The Weather Attribution Center Japan (WAC), founded Tuesday by an independent group of researchers specializing in a growing field of science called event attribution, aims to publicize the results of its assessment within days of a typhoon, torrential rain or extreme heat — while the impact of the weather event is still fresh in the minds of the public and policymakers. The researchers started studying the link between weather events and climate change about 15 years ago, but until now they have only been able to publish their results a few months after extreme weather occurs.
Conventional research methods take months because they require comparisons of massive simulations of data with and without climate change, the scientists said. The team came up with a way to expedite the process for events in Japan by preparing for analysis six to 14 days before the targeted weather event takes place.
The researchers will utilize the Meteorological Agency's 'early weather information,' which is released when five-day average temperatures or precipitation levels are expected to deviate widely from the normal.
'Climate change is an issue that requires immediate action,' Yukiko Imada, associate professor at the University of Tokyo and one of the WAC's founding members, said. 'It's important to foster public awareness that the entire society needs to change.'
WAC's establishment — supported by grants from financial services giant Fuyo General Lease — comes on the heels of an April report by market research firm Ipsos, which found that Japan had the lowest percentage of people who agreed with the sentiment that individuals like them must act now to combat climate change, at 40%, against a 32-country average of 64%.
Members of the Weather Attribution Center Japan announce they will start releasing results of their assessments on climate change's impact on extreme weather events within days of their occurrence, at a news conference on Tuesday in Tokyo. |
Tomoko Otake
The percentages were highest in the Philippines, Indonesia and Mexico, at 82%, 81% and 80%, respectively.
Likewise, only 42% of individuals in Japan who were polled agreed with the view that the government needs to act now to combat climate change or it will be failing their country's people, against a 32-country average of 63%.
Despite the increased speed of analysis, the results are accurate, researchers stressed, thanks to the country's huge climate simulation database called d4PDF. The database — created in 2015 with funding from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology — contains results of simulations conducted over thousands of years and factors in Japan's unique geography as well as the influence of ocean-related natural phenomena such as El Nino.
The group will start releasing results on its website of its analyses of extreme temperatures, with which the effect of warming is the most clear-cut. It is now testing attribution studies on heavy rainfall and is aiming to eventually automate such analyses.
Moves are intensifying in the scientific community to rapidly release findings about climate change's impact on heat waves, landslides, tropical storms and wildfires.
For example, when attribution scientists at the Imperial College London analyzed the impact of climate change on Typhoon Shanshan, which battered large parts of Japan last year, they declared warming had "supercharged" it, even while the storm was still crawling through Japan. Likewise, the World Weather Attribution, a pioneer in rapid attribution analysis, investigated the Los Angeles wildfires that started on Jan. 7, announcing on Jan. 28 that human-induced climate change increased the likelihood of the infernos by 35% and their intensity by 6%.
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